


One Night in Pandemonium

by cloverfield



Category: Tokyo Babylon, Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle
Genre: Alternate Universe, Being Kurogane Is Suffering, CLAMP Cameos, Demons, Exorcists and Exorcisms, Fire, Fire as a Magical Conduit, KuroFai Olympics, Kurofai Olympics 2017, M/M, Magic, Multiple Universes, Spiritual Consulting Services, Team Dragon, The Author Attempted Comedy (And Probably Failed), These Demons Aren't From Dante
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-12
Updated: 2017-08-12
Packaged: 2018-12-14 12:11:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11782914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cloverfield/pseuds/cloverfield
Summary: Dragon vs. Phoenix Olympic fic for the prompt 'out of the frying pan, into the fire'. An exorcist attempts to banish a difficult entity - and fails spectacularly.





	One Night in Pandemonium

**Author's Note:**

> Please note: this fic contains brief instances of violence and magical themes, with explicit depictions of fire as a magical conduit. If fire is triggering for you, please exercise caution.
> 
> This fic was supposed to be 8000 words at most. _Supposed_ to be. As you can clearly see, the fic had other ideas about how long it was going to be... [sweats]

  _Out of the frying pan, into the fire._  
\- English proverb

 _Run from the devil, bump into his dad._  
\- Romanian proverb

 _From demon’s foe, to demon’s favourite._  
\- Demonic proverb

* * *

Kurogane had never opened an office door gently in his life, and he wasn’t about to start now: the shove of his hand sent heavy wood swinging on its hinges, and the chip of the handle into the waiting dent in plaster was just as familiar as the heavy clunk of his boots as they thudded onto carpet, thick pile only partly muffling each clomping step.

“Oh-! Kurogane! Welcome back!” Kobato was quite possibly the only person Kurogane had even known to sound as cheerful at a quarter to five on a Thursday afternoon as she did at any other time of the day, and she gave him a cheerful wave as he scowled past her desk, coat flapping about his legs as he stomped into the reception area. “You don’t look happy. Did the raid on the bookstore not go well?” It was kind of unnerving, actually, how she could smile so much when the rest of the working world was watching the clock with desperation, pleading for those last fifteen minutes to the hometime siren to tick past a little faster. Especially since Thursday was, as far as Kurogane was concerned, the worst day of the working week for being both close to the weekend, and _not close enough_.

“It went fine.” Under her desk, Kobato’s familiar raised its head, lip curling with a silent growl and the spikes on its collar gleaming like the beady black eyes it fixed Kurogane with as it glared, apparently taking umbrage with his clipped tone. “Got in, got out, got the guy arrested and the store closed down.” The police had done their job quick enough once Kurogane had slapped a dozen wards around the place to seal off anything nasty from creeping out between the bookshelves full of magical paraphernalia, marching the owner into the back of the waiting wagon with those special binding handcuffs jingling around his wrists even as he frothed and spat curses. Nothing that would stick, just the standard boilerplate crap any wannabe-warlock spouted off in cheesy novels. Definitely not anything that had any real intent behind it, only impotent anger and spite.

Still, Kurogane hadn’t survived two and a half years of dealing with the things that went bump in the night (or any other time of day, really; all that by the hand of midnight crap was just another thing pulp fiction had to apologise for, along with sparkly vampires and brooding werewolves) by disregarding the power of the spoken word. Most of what he did for a living boiled down to the power of words, when you cut to the quick of it.

“Mr Sumeragi will be really happy to hear that,” said Kobato chirpily. “He’s been making talismans all afternoon, and you know how he gets when he’s tired. It’ll be nice for him to have something positive to end the day on.”

Personally, Kurogane didn’t think what he had in his pocket to show his boss could be called anything like positive, but that was Kobato for you – cheerful to a fault. Half the reason their firm did such a brisk trade was her way with clients, making them feel welcome even in the face of the realisation that the Veil between this Realm and any other was as thin as tissue-paper and just as likely to stop an entity from crawling out of a dark shadow somewhere and making a home in the back of your wardrobe. That was a hard pill to swallow, and having someone with a friendly smile and a cup of tea waiting for you meant a lot when a potential client was too shaken to accept what they’d seen yet.

“Maybe.” It wouldn’t, but even he couldn’t say that to Kobato’s face – she was just too nice. “If I don’t see you before I leave, get home safely.” It was unlikely she wouldn’t – her familiar not only took the form of the kind of dog that would tear your foot off at the ankle if you so much as looked at it wrong, but it could _breathe fire_ , which was very startling indeed for any idiot that tried anything just because Kobato looked like a young woman walking alone, and therefore an easy target.

Kobato beamed up at him, nodding her head happily. “And you too, Kurogane – give my best to your parents, alright? I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”

Grunting something that could have been a good evening, Kurogane straightened his back a little before pushing open the door to the office with, if not exactly care, then less force than he usually would. Making talismans required a lot of concentration, so his boss probably had one hell of a headache to go with the fatigue of energy drain that went into protective magic. The least Kurogane could do was not make that headache any worse.

“Boss? I’m coming in.”

Sumeragi did not startle as Kurogane came in, nor did he pause in scribing his latest batch of _ofuda_ , his brush sliding steadily over thick paper that sucked down silky black ink with all the thirst of desert sand, graceful symbols flowing to life beneath each careful stoke. That dark head stayed bowed low, even as Sumeragi finished his final talisman with the same care as he had started it, each movement of his gloved hands as steady and graceful as only those of a master _onmyouji_ could be. “Hello, Kurogane. It’s good to see you back. I take it you have something for me?”

Fighting the urge to shudder at even the thought of touching it, Kurogane shoved his hand into his pocket and flung its contents out. The suspiciously-leathery sack hit the desktop with a _fwumph_ and an ugly rattle, and as it crumpled over sideways knucklebones – slightly scorched, rune-inscribed, and _definitely_ illegal – spilt from its yawning mouth and across the polished wood in a clattering rush. A few clinked softly against the base of Sumeragi’s cherry tree bonsai arrangement, the delicate sound of bone hitting pottery even more disturbing for its gentleness.

“Here,” grunted Kurogane, resisting the urge to wipe his hand on his jeans and/or purge the filthy things with fire. “One set of cursed _astragali_ , confiscated from the occult bookseller down by the farmer’s market.” He was glad to be rid of the damn things – those knuckles didn’t come from no goat, and while dead bodies and stuff didn’t particularly bother him, the fact that he’d been carrying around a fistful of finger bones stolen from the graves of children in a sack stitched from their parents’ skin wasn’t exactly a comforting one.

 “Thank you, Kurogane. I’m sure the Occult Enforcement Agency will be very happy to have these off the market.” Gently wiping his brush clean and laying it to rest upon his calligraphy pad, Sumeragi looked up when he was done and frowned at length at the gleaming bones spread over his desk. “Urgh – those are _hideous_. I can feel their cursed energy even from here.” The end of a pen poked at the disgusting things, Sumeragi nudging them carefully to the side and away from his bonsai without touching them with even his gloves – a caution Kurogane couldn’t blame him for – and a disturbed look creasing his boyish face.

“You’re telling me. Nearly threw the damn things in the river on the way here, but I knew you’d want to see them first.” Kurogane took the client chair without an invitation, the wood groaning under his sudden weight as he fell into the seat. “You got anything else for me today, boss, or am I off the hook?”

Sumeragi smiled gently, the green eyes his family was famous for soft with apology. “Sorry, Kurogane. I know Thursday is normally your night off, but I’m afraid I need you to head downtown to the foreshore after sundown. There’s apparently a class-D entity causing trouble in the aquarium.” Laying a manila folder on his desk (and avoiding the knucklebones), Sumeragi spread out a sheaf of standard-issue witness reports and stills taken from security cameras. A series of blurry shots revealed a fuzzy figure of a vaguely feline nature, its shadow replete with distinctive ears and a sinuous tail, apparently caught fondling the glass tanks and trying to wriggle what was probably a paw beneath heavy-looking lids. “Everything we have here suggests the entity is a _nekomusume_ rather than a _nekomata_ , or even a _cait_ _sidhe_ , so that’s why I want you in particular to have a look – you’re more than capable of banishing a class-D on your own without my help.”

Sumeragi himself could do it without breaking a sweat – he might look young, but at twenty-two he had become the most accomplished exorcist in the whole prefecture, let alone the city; ten years later, and that title had yet to be challenged. The kind of mojo that Sumeragi Subaru, _onmyouji_ wunderkind and destined to be the next inheritor of the Sumeragi clan’s headship following his grandmother’s retirement, could call up made even class-A and class-S entities hesitate before attempting any large-scale destruction. But that kind of power had a price: the scars etched onto the back of Sumeragi’s hands were proof enough of that. A tangle with an especially evil spirit in his youth and its long-term effects meant that these days, Sumeragi was more likely to provide guidance to the handful of exorcists that worked with him at his small private firm rather than go out on his own.

The bonsai on his desk – the last remnants of the entity in question, bound forever to a cherry tree and trapped in a bespelled pot – was another reminder of his past, and one that Kurogane found needlessly creepy: there was something about those stunted, twisted branches and the tiny pink blossoms blooming amongst blackened wood that made his sweat roll backwards just to look at it. It didn’t help that Sumeragi had to salt the damn thing twice daily to stop the unquiet spirit bound to it from rustling menacingly at every visitor to his office, and honestly Kurogane didn’t know why Sumeragi didn’t just set it on fire and be done with it.

“Tch.” It wasn’t like Kurogane usually had anything else particularly interesting planned for a Thursday night, but still. He wasn’t exactly keen on spending the better part of the evening watching fish swim around in a dark aquarium and hanging out for a cat spirit to show up. “I was gonna see my parents, but I guess I’ll tell them to get stuck into the sukiyaki without me.” Which sucked – his mother’s sukiyaki was the _best_ , and with his father’s appetite there wasn’t likely to be any leftovers. He had Fridays off though, so he could always turn a dinner visit into a lunch one, maybe take his parents out to one of those nice restaurants downtown. “I can do it. It shouldn’t take me long.” That wasn’t just his ego talking – a class-D was pretty weak, and Kurogane had banished up to class-C1 entities without assistance before. The worst bit would be waiting for it to manifest, which could be up to a couple of hours if it was feeling cheeky.

Sumeragi’s smile widened, brightening his thin face even if it didn’t quite reach the sorrow in his eyes. “Thank you – it’s a weight off my mind to have you on the job. Now, if it _is_ something more than your standard purify-and-banish, make sure you give me a call – I’m staying until late tonight catching up on some of the paperwork the OEA wants me to file on our recent cases, so I’ll be happy to provide backup if you need it.”

“You mean you’re hiding out in the office tonight because that sister of yours is trying to set you up on a blind date again,” said Kurogane flatly. Judging by the flustered heat that coloured Sumeragi’s face pink, he wasn’t wrong.

“N-no! I really do have paperwork!” It was kind of impressive that his boss could still blush like a teenage boy seeing as he was on the wrong side of thirty, but frankly Kurogane didn’t blame him. He’d met Hokuto, and she wasn’t exactly the kind of woman that took _no_ for an answer – or even _please, sis, don’t embarrass me in front of my employees! No one will take me seriously if you keep giving me noogies!_ either, for that matter. That Kurogane had somehow escaped her earnest attention for the most part was a minor miracle. “Honest!”

Yeah, he probably did, but that wasn’t the only reason and they both knew it. “Whatever you say, boss. I’m gonna grab something to eat and have a nap in the backroom, and then I’ll be off to go see our catgirl after dark.” There was a fold-out couch in the rooms out behind the front office and the client meeting space, and while it wasn’t the comfiest thing in the world, it was enough to catch a couple of hours of shut-eye before night exorcisms. There were _pamphlets_ about exorcists who tried to banish entities while sleep-deprived, and they had a lot of red font and words like ‘dismembered’ and ‘partially eaten’ and ‘no remains found’ in them.

“Make sure you do,” said Sumeragi kindly. “And if Kazahaya is still there, tell him I said he needs to _go home_ already – he’s got exams next week and he should be studying, not messing around with old case files looking for clues.” The part-time kid that had started as an intern and somehow wormed his way into being a member of their small team was like a dog after a bone when he got an idea in his head, and his latest idea had been to wade through decades of dusty documentation in the hopes of finding some thread to start him off on the search for the entity that had attacked his family when he was younger. Sumeragi, soft touch that he was, hadn’t given him anything but encouragement, which meant Kazahaya had been spending all his free time lately cluttering up the backroom with stacks upon stacks of paperwork.

Kurogane snorted. Telling the kid to get lost when he thought he was onto something would go down as well as an iron horseshoe thrown into a fairy ring. “Yeah, yeah,” he sighed, heaving himself out of the chair. “I’ll do my best.”

This time, Sumeragi’s smile was happier, almost playful in a way it rarely was these days. “Thanks, Kurogane. I knew I could rely on you.”

“ _Tch_.” There wasn’t anything Kurogane could say to _that_ without blushing, so he just waved a hand and beat a hasty retreat for the backroom. Working at the Sumeragi Spiritual Services firm had made his life interesting, that was for sure – but sometimes there was only so much interesting a man could take. Finding Miss Whiskers and banishing her from the aquarium would be a welcome distraction from all the warm and fuzzy feelings that seemed to float around the place, almost like it was some kind of _family_ or something.

* * *

The office was all but empty when Kurogane woke up at a quarter to nine, his phone buzzing on his chest and his mouth dry from sleep. Kazahaya had long since packed it in for the night, leaving the room mostly tidy even if the kid had left teetering piles of paper littered over the coffee table and bright pink sticky-notes everywhere with _IMPORTANT RESEARCH –_ _Do not TOUCH!!!_ written on them in catscratch letters. The light in Sumeragi’s office was still on, leaking under the door in a thin stripe of buttery yellow, but the front desk was vacant, Kobato’s hat and coat gone from the rack and her familiar missing from his basket under the desk.

( _Good_. Something about that dog creeped Kurogane out to no measure – and not just because he was blue, either.)

Kurogane kept his footsteps light over the carpet, passing through with the kind of quiet reserved for the in-between places, like hospitals or libraries, and schools after sunset. There were no spirits anywhere around the office – not since Sumeragi had properly sanctified the pentagram engraved into the floor in the summoning room a few years back, anyway – but it was a hard habit to break. The pentagram’s protective wards bled through the whole building, a warm and cosy static that Kurogane could feel brushing up against his aura like a cat winding through his legs: harmless and well-meaning and even kind of affectionate, but absolutely vicious with tooth and claw should you step on its tail by trying anything nasty. Shrugging into his coat and lacing his boots up tightly felt like routine, and slinging his satchel heavily over his shoulder to feel it drag downwards under its own weight was its own kind of comfort as usual; a sign that he had all his gear ready to go and he was well prepared for another night spent waiting around for an entity to show up so he could shove it back where it came from.

Kit and coat, boots and badge (his official government-sanctioned exorcist licence swinging around his neck on its silver chain, as always) and Kurogane was ready to go, tapping twice on the door lintel for good luck as he passed through. There was no such thing as being too superstitious when you dealt with otherworldy crap for a living, after all.

The driver of the Uber Kurogane caught downtown didn’t attempt to talk to him, taking one look at his exorcist get-up and keeping his mouth wisely shut, which was exactly the way Kurogane liked it, and he was at the pedestrian mall by the waterfront in less than twenty minutes. The nightlife at the foreshore tourist district was just starting to pick up, the handful of clubs and bars scattered amongst the shops and restaurants opening up and their patrons queueing up outside in winding lines, a few looking curiously around as Kurogane passed them by. Already he could hear the _wub-wub-drr_ of dance music pumping out through open doors and it was enough to give him a headache – not what he needed if he was gonna be sitting around waiting for a demon to show up.

The aquarium itself was closed, and had been for several hours now, but according to the file Kurogane had read there was a night guard on duty until 4am, when the first day staff would come back in the morning. The building itself looked like a modern art project, all glass walls and swooping shapes. It was probably meant to represent the spirit of human discovery in regards to sea life or something, but to Kurogane it just looked like a glass cube that had been attacked with a blowtorch, leaving its sides to droop and melt. It probably looked nicer during the day, with the sunlight shining off the ocean reflecting through green-blue glass in bright spangles, but at this time of night it was dark and eerie, the odd cast to deep shadows where they fell the perfect place for apparitions and entities to hide.

“Are you the exorcist?”

The security guard standing outside the wide glass doors looked nervous, even in his ridiculous fish-shaped hat, and Kurogane supposed that was fair enough: the average pleb wouldn’t know benevolent from malevolent when it came to spirits, and this guy probably wasn’t getting paid nearly enough to deal with any kind of entity beyond your run-of-the-mill spook you tended to get in big building with a large patron base. Ghosts were mostly harmless – echoes of the dead attracted to the energy of the living, and generally couldn’t do much to anyone still walking around; any entity strong enough to push through the Veil between this world and the Realms beyond was something else entirely.

“Yeah, that’d be me.” Kurogane flashed his badge, the light from the guard’s torch glinting off the silver like a stray moonbeam. “I’m from Sumeragi Spirit Services. You can call me Kurogane.” The badge was warm when he tucked it back into his shirt, the protective charm spelled into its metal settling back over Kurogane’s aura like a blanket. “Let’s go see this cat of yours.”

The guard was clearly too nervous to get chatty, which was fine; Kurogane was more interested in looking around as they walked through the aquarium proper. The glass ceilings and huge tanks cast a dim blue glow over the long and empty halls, the rippling sound of water oddly muted and their footsteps far too loud on cold tile floors. Weird shadows swept and swayed through the gloom, shapes passing overhead as fish passed them by, and the guard jumped about a foot in the air when a shark swam from one tank to another above them as they ducked through a twisting tunnel meant to illustrate life in the middle of the ocean. Personally, Kurogane thought the poor bastard was a bit too jumpy for a job like this one, but then having an entity on the premise was bad for staff morale no matter how brave they were and _female cat demon from ancient mythology with a taste for tuna_ was definitely way outta this guy’s paygrade.

“H-here. This is where we’ve seen it the most often.” The guard’s hands were shaking as he pushed open the doors leading into the back, and as soon as they swung wide the fishy smell of saline and seafood seeping from huge storage tanks gave way to something else entirely: the astringent, stinging chemical fug of torn Veil burning Kurogane’s nose and the back of his tongue when he took a breath.

_Gotcha._

“You head back to the front – I’ll take it from here.” Striking one of the sulphur-dipped matches from the box in his pocket produced a white flame, and Kurogane clicked his tongue as it twisted and jumped in ways no natural fire should. There was definitely an entity in the building, and it was close by. It was an old trick but still a good one, and the guard flushed pale under his dumb hat as the matchhead burst into a brief shower of sparks, pinewood crumbling into so much ashes as it burnt down to Kurogane’s fingertips with alarming speed before puffing out in a wisp of smoke. “I’d make it quick, if I were you,” Kurogane added, grinning at that slack-jawed stare.

“Uh, uh, _right!_ ”

If the poor bastard had backed away any faster he’d have been running, and Kurogane snorted as soon as he heard the slap of shoes on tile speed up and out of hearing range down the hallway. It was a mean thing to do, maybe, scaring him like that – but it was for the guard’s own good. The less people around the better. It also meant Kurogane was given no offer of help, which was exactly the way he wanted it; wasn’t much someone with no skills could do anyway, and Kurogane worked better on his own, especially when he didn’t have to worry about keeping civilians safe. “Alright, Miss Kitty,” he muttered, swiping the ash off his fingers and onto his jeans. “Let’s see if I can get you to come out and play.”

The back room was filled with towering tanks and all sorts of pipes and filters and various other plumbing that made soft _gloop_ noises into the gloom, and Kurogane’s footsteps, as quiet as they were, echoed off permadamp concrete as he wandered further inwards. It wasn’t exactly the most pleasant place he’d been asked to exorcise an entity from, but it wasn’t the spookiest either (that particular honour went to any kind of school, especially after dark) and it probably held all sorts of attraction for a catgirl looking for a feed. The photos from the file Sumeragi had given him had shown her trying to get into the tanks, and while they had no moving footage – it was a well-known if strange truth that entities, no matter how powerful, would only show up on still images and not digital recordings no matter how high the quality, and even then in poor definition no matter what tricks were used when taking it – Kurogane was willing to make a bet that the mischief she’d been up to had been aiming to catch herself something scaly for dinner.

Not exactly unusual behaviour for a _nekomusume_ , food motivated as they were, or even any one of the other spirits classed in the same category… though Kurogane had heard that _cait sidhe_ were apparently more interested in fowl than fish, and really had a thing for old-style honeyed mead. Even if the shots on file had been fuzzy at best and damn near unrecognisable at worst, all the statements from the aquarium employees and descriptions of her behaviour gave every indication that he was dealing with a cat-daughter and nothing more sinister: the kind of low-class entity Kurogane could banish half asleep, and often _had_ in his university days where he’d only been able to snatch a few hours of sleep between classes and assignments.

 _Nekomusume_ weren’t particularly malevolent; much like cats, they were the kind of creatures that put their self-interests first, even if they sometimes had a favourite human or two they might attach themselves to. It was good luck to be favoured by a _nekomusume_ , provided you kept yourself in good steading with the entity in question, and as long as you didn’t go out of your way to offend or do harm – and kept a supply of fish handy – most people would escape their interactions with one unscathed. None of which explained the creeping dread bleeding up Kurogane’s legs from the very soles of his boots as he squished through puddles of salty water with heavy steps.

Kurogane had been exorcising entities since he was twenty-two: when he’d first been taken on as an apprentice at Sumeragi’s firm, after years and years of denying it was his destiny in the first place. Unlike most exorcists or mediums, he had no natural knack for magic, no inborn gift or secret pool of power to draw on in times of need, even if he did come from a family with talent in the blood. He couldn’t make spelled talismans like Sumeragi himself, or interpret the spiritual impressions left on objects like Kazahaya; nor could he see ghosts with the naked eye, like that Kinomoto guy they worked with sometimes when they needed a medium to help out on a case. Even Kobato’s ability to read Tarot with uncanny accuracy and predict where an entity would next be found was beyond him. What Kurogane _did_ have, on the other hand, was a bloody-minded determination that could bend steel – and an instinct for danger that had saved him by the skin of his teeth on more than one occasion.

Which was why, when the hair on the back of Kurogane’s neck started to rise in sheer dread of whatever creature was _creeping along behind him_ , he wasted no time in questioning it; he didn’t get feelings like that without damn good reason, and an exorcist that doubted their instincts was more often than not a _dead_ exorcist before long. Something was following him, that was for sure, and with the kind of predatory glee that a cat hunting a mouse might radiate at that.

Kurogane kept walking slowly, keeping his movements steady and calm. Any sudden motion would not only indicate that he was aware he was being stalked, but might trigger the entity into attacking: better to keep his cool and figure out how to get himself somewhere where he could counter any strike before giving them game up. Still, it was fucking weird that a _nekomusume_ would be acting so aggressively when he hadn’t done anything to her – and the reports from the aquarium staff said she had only been present for a little over a week, meaning it wasn’t nearly long enough for her to be established in new territory as part of the local spiritual ecosystem.

It was possible he might be dealing with something else entirely – the stills they had weren’t nearly clear enough to provide a perfect ID – but even if it was something else, something more malevolent in nature than a low-class cat demon out to make mischief, that was no explanation for why Kurogane hadn’t been attacked the moment he’d entered the back room—

The sudden and complete absence of movement behind him, where before there had been creeping intent and the very faintest of sounds as water rippled and echoed oddly around the presence of an extranatural being, was the only clue Kurogane had for the incoming blow, and even then it was only half a breath of warning before the entity attacked.

* * *

Kurogane ducked the first swipe even as he spun, dropping down into a crouch that held low and steady even on slippery concrete, and rolling into a turn that had him rising up behind the creature that swooped over the top of him in a shocking streak of slender figure and sinuous tail.

_Fuck, she’s fast!_

The next swipe came paired with a giggle and enough force behind it that Kurogane had to duck or risk having a hole punched clean through his head. Sharp claws knifed through the air, and a thunderous crunch boomed out behind him, chunks of brick shattering outwards in a shower of dusty shards as the slash raked across the wall and exploded several tiles and quite a bit of concrete in its gashing wake. _Don’t let her fucking hit you or you’re going to die_ , thought Kurogane, in one of those odd moments of clarity where adrenaline slowed the world down to a Gaussian blur of urgent movement and frantic heartbeats.

It was in this slow and strange haze that Kurogane ducked, dodged, and dashed past the next three shots she took at him, judging her speed as best he could – and when the fourth swipe came, Kurogane latched onto her wrist in a sweeping block that tumbled her up and over his shoulder in a pinwheel of flailing limbs. She squealed as she went flying, tail whipping around as Kurogane threw her, her small figure smashing straight into the thick wall of the tank opposite. The deep dull bell of water-full glass being struck rung out as she slammed into it with considerable speed – hard enough that Kurogane had to wince at the crackle that sprinted through splintering glass, the walls of the tank warping and shuddering as fissures bloomed away from the point of impact, and finally collapsing outwards in a burst of bubbling water that crashed onto concrete in an unstoppable rush.

Jumping backwards and up onto a heavy toolbox, Kurogane escaped the first flash flood gushing over the concrete but the catgirl – or whatever she was – _didn’t_ , swept up into the current and spun across the hard floor in a wet mass of tangled limbs and thrashing tail, a couple dozen dying fish flopping in her foaming wake. An unhappy squeaking whine rose above the gurgle of water bleeding down into the drains embedded in concrete, and Kurogane crouched down on his steel box to figure out what, exactly, was making sad noises after he’d just narrowly avoided losing his head to it – because it sure as hell wasn’t a _nekomusume_.

Pointy ears, yes, but they weren’t feline – just triangular points that knifed through the wet and sopping mess of pale hair draped over her face, hair that tangled in wet locks over bony shoulders and dripped streams of salty water to the floor. And the tail was no cat’s tail, either: it was unfurred and darkly sleek, too long and too serpentine to be anything like a cat’s or even a monkey’s, curling and twisting in ways any limb with bones couldn’t, no matter _how_ prehensile. The paws that Kurogane had felt swipe for his head were hands more or less human in shape, even if they _were_ tipped with claws, and the slender limbs they were attached to were definitely more girlish than catty. Whatever it was that had attacked him sat sprawled before him in a miserable heap, and now that she was wet she looked a lot less murderous and a lot more pathetic, no matter that the goosebumps rippling up Kurogane’s arms suggested he’d narrowly avoided death by decapitation.

Kurogane stepped down off his impromptu refuge, boots landing heavy in the slow rivulets still trickling away from the smashed tank and towards the drains. “What _are_ you? Are you sentient? Do you understand human speech?”

Two brown eyes, soft and forlorn, peered up at Kurogane from between the heavy locks of dripping yellow hair parted by small and claw-tipped hands. “Chii?” she chirped, and it sounded hopeful and apologetic all at once, an impressive depth of feeling for just one short syllable. She was a lot smaller than he’d expected – human-sized, yes, but no bigger than an adolescent and definitely not fully grown, if the childish cast to her tiny face was to be believed. A fish, one of the many thrashing pathetically in the open air, wriggled in her small lap, its flapping tail splatting against the manifold pleats of the thin, soaked drapery of cloth that clung to her slender frame. Distracted from looking up at him with those sad eyes, the girlish thing grabbed at her trapped prey, scooping it up between her hands. “Chii.” The fish wriggled faster, bulging eyes glassing over and fat-lipped mouth gaping as its gills worked frantically, its struggling movement slowing as she lifted it to her face and sniffed at it curiously. “Chii!” she trilled at last, and with a speed that made Kurogane flinch, shoved it into her mouth so that the sharp and needling teeth beneath that soft pout could tear into its flesh in a ripping bite.

Kurogane blinked slowly, watching the creature chew with bulging cheeks and red blood dripping liberally down her pointed chin, burbling as gleefully as a toddler with cake and about three times as savage. “…I’m going to take that as a _no_.”

Aware that he was quite possibly walking into danger, Kurogane drew closer – though still not close enough that she could swipe at him again without straining to reach. His caution didn’t seem to matter, as the Chii-ing creature sprawled happily in her puddle, uncaring of the broken glass littered around her and apparently content to eat chunks of raw fish with dainty little bites that still flashed far too many teeth than could reasonably fit in that small mouth. Superficial similarities to a _nekomusume_ and a love for sashimi aside, she wasn’t something Kurogane had ever encountered before, and the power he could feel rippling off that deceptively delicate frame was a lot higher that a class-D entity ranking could account for. She’d definitely come through the Veil, but from _which_ Realm?

“You’re closer to a class-B if you’re anything,” Kurogane muttered, crouching down to scoop another fish up from the floor. Getting a good grip on its faintly-twitching tail, he tossed it towards the entity with a lazy underhand, only to watch her swipe it out of the air one-handed with lightning speed. “Yeah. No way you’re only D rank. And I have no idea what you are, either.”

Unconcerned with Kurogane’s observation, the creature finished stripping her first fish of tasty bits, dropping it to the ground and immediately tearing into her second. Pointed ears twitched happily as she ate, contented little murmurs bubbling through the gore oozing past her teeth, and stray fish scales flaking away like silvery snow as she chewed eagerly. “Chii,” she mumbled, mouth full and ears twitching in what Kurogane supposed was probably enjoyment. Her tail curled and uncurled sinuously, rising up and undulating like a serpent summoned by a flute, its heart-shaped head swaying merrily with every motion.

“Right. Well, you just stay where you are. Keep eating that fish.” _And I’m going to get a circle in place to push you back to wherever the hell you came from._

For all that Kurogane could feel the power in her aura – and it was a _shitton_ of power at that, the kind of power that usually demanded living sacrifice to raise up – and for all that she’d tried to attack him, she didn’t appear actively aggressive; hell, her behaviour before had been more playful than anything else, even if Kurogane did feel a bit like a mouse being played with by a cat. For now she seemed more than happy to keep eating as Kurogane walked around her, grabbing a nearby broom from a tool rack and using it to sweep the broken glass and dead fish around her in a rough circle. Despite what modern cinema and paranormal romance novels claimed, an exorcist’s ‘circle’ didn’t need to be circular or even drawn with chalk: it could be made with anything at all as long as it was unbroken and created with intent. The most important thing in any circle was the iron will of the caster, and Kurogane had _that_ in spades.

Closing the circle, Kurogane left enough clearance that the entity in the middle could lie down and still not reach the casting lines with outstretched hands, and it was only luck that she was small enough and the space between the tanks large enough for him to do so. Still, the unbroken line of chunked up glass and fish bodies would serve its purpose, even if it didn’t look particularly pretty – Kurogane was going for efficiency here, not aesthetics.

“Chii?”

She was watching him now, peering curiously up at Kurogane with half-eaten fish in hand as he dropped his satchel to the damp ground and drew his dagger from his hip sheath: a blessed _tanto_ , made in the old style, but with more silver in its metal than practical for any knife. In the gloom it shone with its own light, blue wisps trailing from its blade as Kurogane twisted it in his hand to get a good grip on the short wooden handle, fingers slotting into the grooves worn by generations of hands. An edge too dull to cut rippled as he drove it up in sharp, flickering lines and arcane characters bloomed into being as Kurogane walked the circle to cast them, each sigil hanging in the air in a breath of glowing smoke.

“ _From whence thou came, thou shalt return_ ,” Kurogane murmured, pouring his will into the ritual words as they pushed past his lips, the echo of their meaning pounding in his chest with each rumbling syllable he spoke. “ _Thou art not of this Realm, and to thy own Realm, thou art exiled_.” The light on the edge of the blade flickered as Kurogane brought it to bear before him, blue and white and other colours – some he had no name for – streaming over silver as he slipped the tip of his dagger between the unseen edges of this Realm and the Realms beyond and drew it slowly down. “ _With this circle, I open the Veil_.”

Flames, bright and rippling, bloomed over broken glass, the fabric of reality warping with a hiss of tearing silk as the circle forced a connection point between two disparate Realms. Light danced in twisting arcs as power crackled from sigil to sigil and set shadow to writhing in the pools of water spilt over concrete and across the beams and panels of the ceiling. It wasn’t _real_ fire, Kurogane knew: more like a metaphor for the energies of two worlds colliding and the massive release of energy that spilled from that collision. A simple image the human brain could understand in the face of what was metaphysical in the extreme, and not _actually_ a circle of spitting white flame that burned on glassy chunks and dead fish. If he put his hand in it, it wouldn’t burn – though he’d have to be the worst kind of idiot to stick his hand inside an exorcist’s circle and not expect to lose it. Even if the fire wasn’t real (insofar as anything that existed on several dimensions at once could be called _real_ ) it was still dangerous. Also, it looked really fucking cool.

 _“Chii!”_ The screech was expected, the previously passive creature at the circle’s heart splitting into violence the moment the binding closed and the flames leapt up, and tiny clawed fists hammered at the barrier between them as though against glass, deep thumping blows that crackled off sparks and wisps of glowing light but did not let her through. That thin face, streaked with blood and the glitter of fish scales, snarled cutely; even in a rage, there was a feline delicacy to her features that wasn’t enough to frighten, but the sudden blue flash deep in brown eyes – a flicker there-and-gone-again of a blue more bright and painful than the flames of the circle itself – startled Kurogane into staring even as she shrieked with temper.

 _The fuck was that?_ Kurogane scowled. “Oi. Calm down. You’re just going to hurt yourself – you’re not getting out.”

It wasn’t the first time he’d watched an entity rage at its banishment. Wouldn’t even be the last this week, probably. There was something about this one, though, something strange enough to make him hesitate – he’d never seen or heard of anything like this kind of being before, and even the knowledge that she could not break what his will had wrought wasn’t the comfort it was supposed to be.

“Chii _ii—!_ ” She screeched again, voice rising in trembling vibrato as it climbed in pitch, and Kurogane winced at the sound that felt like nails scratching the inside of his skull. Twice more her fists thumped against the barrier; twice more it resisted, the sigils Kurogane had cast warping and shuddering with each pounding retort. Brown eyes, slit-pupiled and furious, flared a burning blue once more – and _stayed that way_ , seething with a light that scorched and flickered fit to rival the circle’s flames itself.

“Well, _fuck_.” The colour of one’s eyes was one thing an entity could not, _should not_ be able to change under their own power – and anything that turned that gaze into another entirely fell firmly into the category of _Really Fucking Dangerous, Do Not Fuck Around With_.  Kurogane’s heart squeezed, a heady thump he felt throbbing in his hands, skittering the pulse that jumped in his throat. _Better wrap this the hell up._

Ignoring the furious pounding of those clawed fists against the wall of his circle – and the sparks flying out from every blow – Kurogane’s hands twisted, the blade of his _tanto_ simmering with flickers of white-hot energy as he took the ritual stance. “ _In my name_ ,” he bit out, forcing his breathing to steady and folding every ounce of determination he possessed into the words like a blacksmith folded steel, “ _and by my will_ —”

The entity was still now, eerily so, her eyes blue and bright and fixed on Kurogane’s face as though to burn. Kurogane stared right back. He’d never been cowed by a catgirl before, and he sure as hell wasn’t gonna start now. _Blue eyes or not, you’re outta here._

“ _—I cast thee out!_ ”

The words roared with an echo from deep in his chest, the surge of his intent crackling out through his voice and his sigils both, and Kurogane grinned with a fierce satisfaction he’d been reliably informed was terrifying. Hot sparks jumped from seal to seal as the circle swelled into a bonfire, white flames leaping up in blazing tongues that spat and popped across wet concrete and set the shadows of the aquarium shrinking back from its boiling light. Maybe the entity was screaming, or maybe she wasn’t, but Kurogane couldn’t hear her over the thump of his pulse and the drumming of his own determination that she would be banished, his _tanto_ held tight in sweating hands as the backwash of heat and energy crashed over him in a rolling wave that rocked him on his feet.

The drain in his chest wasn’t unexpected – your circle was only as strong as your will, and fed on your energy as much as any spell would, after all – but the magnitude of it was something else entirely: more than a class-D, or even a class-B, should need. Kurogane didn’t stumble under the pull, but it wasn’t pleasant either, enough that he had to grit his teeth against the black spots that swelled up sudden in the corners of his vision. His mouth filled with the taste of copper, teeth aching from the clench of his jaw – but the drain was still going, too much and too fast to be stopped. _This shouldn’t be taking so long, or taking so much! What the hell–?_

The circle raged brighter, flames so high and so white Kurogane could barely see through them. Couldn’t see a damn thing at all, between the glaring sizzle of power and the yawning darkness that blurred his sight with dizzying speed. He dropped to one knee, blinking furiously; his blade slipped from his fingers to skitter away, and the heavy weight of his exorcist’s badge swung around his neck like a stone, its chain tightening in a noose of strangling silver. Something was wrong: the blessed metal was hot to the touch, _too hot_ , and Kurogane hissed at the pain seeping into his skin from the branding touch against his chest. He could still hear her screaming in the circle he’d trapped her in, but a deep and wordless snarl unlike anything he’d heard before came rolling through her voice like thunder – and when the raging flames before him bloomed from frosty white into a cruel and searing blue, the backlash that crashed through his casting knocked him off his feet entirely.

“Fu _ck—!_ ”

Kurogane hit the ground with a bonejarring thud, his head cracking painfully against concrete. He rolled with his vision still spitting stars, fighting to regain his feet – but then clawed hands shot through the splintering barrier to grab him by the ankle in a punishing grip. Pain shot up his leg in a splintering bolt when his knees gave out and knocked him down once more, leaving him winded as the impact to his ribs smashed the breath from his lungs. Kurogane kicked out furiously, his ankle crunching with agony even as he struggled against the ferocity of that clawed grip as it dragged him backwards, and his fingernails flaked wet with blood as they scraped raw against concrete. The creature in the circle ripped him through burning, broken glass and across the barrier line with a strength that would not be denied, and Kurogane clawed for each gasp air as the crushing weight of the Veil fell across him like a curtain of lead.

_She’s too strong – she didn’t have this much power before!_

Kurogane felt it the moment his casting failed: a deep and aching blow to the chest that forced blood across his tongue in a bitter wash as the circle collapsed entirely. The shrieking maelstrom closed around him in a wreath of twisting flame and irresistible heat, a vortex he could not escape, and in his last and most desperate moment, all Kurogane could see was _blue_.

* * *

It wasn’t exactly the buzzing of the phone pinned between his cheek and the crumpled mess of paperwork beneath it that woke Sumeragi Subaru, the most powerful exorcist on this side of the dragonlines, from his slumber at some time past eleven – but it sure as hell wasn’t letting him go _back_ to sleep. “Wha—? _Hokuto_ , go away,” he mumbled, barely even glancing at the phone as he peeled himself off his desk with a grumbling mutter and slapped his hand at the screen (and the photo of his twin grinning cheesily up at him) until it stopped flashing and vibrating. As soon as it stopped rumbling across his desk, the after-hours silence of his office rushed back in to fill his ears once more.

…except it _wasn’t_ silence, not really, not with the faint ringing prickling on the edge of his awareness with all the delicacy of silver.

Subaru sat bolt upright, almost falling out of his chair in shock. “A _bell_ – oh gods, Kurogane!”

Across the room and affixed to the wall – just below the framed and official licence certificates of all his employees – was a wooden plaque, and bolted to its surface were a series of silver bells, each one attuned to the licence badge and protective talisman every exorcist in his care wore when on the job. Each small and silver chime was engraved with the name of its corresponding charge, and enchanted to chime should the badge – and the one who bore it – encounter danger beyond their capabilities. The bell which bore Kurogane’s name was ringing: a sign that Subaru’s most senior apprentice was in grave and mortal peril.

_The nekomusume!_

A class-D demon could not give Kurogane enough trouble to make his bell ring. He might have not a single damn drop of magic in his blood despite the bloodlines he drew from, but Subaru would still back Kurogane alone against a whole horde of lower-class spirits, spells or no spells; you could melt steel with the sheer ferocity of that willpower, and the core of any casting was the caster’s belief – no circle would hold if the exorcist did not demand it do so with every scrap of determination they possessed. For Kurogane to have trouble against a minor cat spirit meant that it wasn’t a minor cat spirit at all: the entity he’d been sent to exorcise was much, _much_ more than it seemed, and Subaru himself to blame for assigning him the case in the first place.

 _“_ Shit.”

It took a lot to make Subaru curse, but tonight was a night for curses. If Kurogane was in enough trouble for his bell to ring, then he was in no shape to call for the backup he needed – and Subaru the only one who could help him. _I have to get to the aquarium!_

Subaru stumbled into his boots, grabbing his coat, his bag – and darted back to shove his phone into his pocket in absent frustration as his instinct to rush warred with his need to make sure he had all his gear. He jumped over the chair he knocked over in his haste, the ringing of the bell a claxon in his ears, and his hand touched the doorhandle in the same moment that softly desperate chime cut out entirely with a warped and ugly shriek. Turning to stare at the bells in horror, Subaru could only watch as silver blackened with sudden tarnish like dark smoke billowed out from a fire: almost faster than the eye could follow, and with all things consumed in its burning wake.

“No-!”

Blue flame rippled across once-bright metal, and in its wake silver melted like ice, slick and dripping – but completely unlike ice in how it oozed slowly to the floor in a waxlike dribbles, eating through the carpet like acid hissing through paper. Liquid metal shuddered and warped, rippling with the ghostly reflection of uncanny flame as it spread and shaped, long thin lines curling in lacy strokes across smouldering shagpile to burn a sigil the likes of which Subaru had never seen into his floor in a branding emblem.

For the bell to ring meant danger; for the bell to crack meant death. But for silver to drip like moonlight and trace the symbol of a power beyond any understanding on this side of the Veil – _well_. There was only one thing Subaru could think that meant, and it was the worst of all possible scenarios. His bag dropped to the floor unbidden, unneeded now; even if Subaru _could_ get to the exorcism taking place at the aquarium in the next ten seconds, it was already too late.

“Kurogane,” he said softly, still staring as molten silver started to cool, wisping curls of blue-stained smoke rising from the bubbling mirror of its surface. “Where the _hell_ are you?”

* * *

Kurogane fell, and as he fell he burned _._

Each breath was fire, every part of him consumed and gone to ash – except, oddly enough, his leg still hurt, which was annoying; apparently being a soul lost inside the Veil didn’t save him from the fact he probably had a broken ankle. Not to mention the two fingernails he’d lost on his left hand, and the bruising pressure of what he was sure was a cracked rib. That the pain still lingered even after he lost the body parts associated with it was just his damn luck. Also, despite the fact he had no eyes now, he could see just fine, which was another layer of weird about the whole discorporation situation.

Not that there was much to see. Just blue fire, a raging inferno that eclipsed all else, an endless sea of flame that stretched beyond all comprehension – and so on and so forth, et cetera. After the first few seconds of sheer terror had passed, he’d kinda gotten over it. Yeah, it was impressive and all, but if this _was_ death or complete destruction in a fiery vortex of doom or whatever then it was really taking its _sweet fucking time about it_ , and wasn’t it supposed to stop hurting at some point? Even if he was disembodied Kurogane had better things to do than float around with a headache for all eternity. (…was it still a headache if you didn’t have a head?)

The demon was laughing, delighted as a child as they tumbled in tandem through the point of no return, and even if he couldn’t see her he could still _hear_ her, which was unfortunate. Part of him wanted her to shut the hell up, but the more pragmatic side of him pointed out that if he really had been dragged by the ankle into the purifying flames of an exorcising circle, then it was probably a good idea to stick around the entity he’d been exorcising in the first place and follow her lead. If listening to that otherworldly giggle as all space around him cracked and hissed and popped in infernal consumption even counted as following.

Kurogane had exactly no experience of falling backwards through the Veil to draw on, so it wasn’t like he could do any worse. And if this was what it felt like being exorcised, then pretty much _anything else_ would be an improvement.

The tail of that thought, as half-hearted as it was, caught and tugged at the back of his mind like a hook: enough that Kurogane found himself reaching out with the hands he didn’t have, watching fire twist and swirl as he strained for something, _anything_ more than simply falling through endless fire and burning for the rest of—

The crush of sudden and overwhelming weight pressing in on all sides quenched the flames like the surge of a tsunami, forcing Kurogane back into a shape he wasn’t sure he fit anymore, and in its wake brought the onslaught of sensation that only being slammed down from a great height back into his own body could cause. It was like being ripped apart in reverse. Everything _hurt_ , from the tips of his eyelashes to the old scar on the back of his heel, and all at once: as though every single moment of pain Kurogane had ever felt was twice-filtered through glacial ice and distilled into a cold steely mouthful he was forced to choke down. He screamed, a guttural thing torn ragged from his throat in an explosion of bubbles – the fire was gone and he was _drowning_ , so deep he could not be found, and too fucking exhausted to even _try_ to swim.

The need for air burned in his lungs, a lead weight dragging in his chest, and Kurogane snarled through a mouthful of blood-warm liquid as he forced himself to _move move move_ , clawing with closed hands that he somehow had once more and dragging himself through the dark sea that surrounded him in a frantic crawl towards what he could only hope was the surface. His pulse pounded in his ears and the kicking of his legs felt like wading through centuries of mud, but there was light above him, dim and weak where it filtered through the endless depths, and a new fire burned in his gut as he struggled upwards. If he had to choose between certain death and uncertain whatever, he’d take his fucking chances, and he hadn’t survived being burned alive by his trip through the Veil to drown in some murky pond before he even figured out which Realm he’d ended up in anyway.

The light grew brighter even as the black splotches swimming in his eyes grew darker, a war between the two and the dizzy desperate need to breathe tearing in his chest, and when Kurogane’s hand burst through the slick and cloying surface he could only sob as he threw himself upwards with the last dregs of his dying strength and followed soon after in a foaming wave of breaking froth, sucking down air with everything he had before slipping back under once more.

It took three tries for Kurogane to haul himself up enough to even attempt floating, treading water with limbs wrapped in chains of fatigue, but every lesson Kurogane remembered about water survival crowded to the fore as he rolled onto his back and gulped for greedy breath. _Fucking hell. How the fuck did I even survive that?_ To be honest, he wasn’t sure he actually _had_ survived anyway – all the individual points of pain that had told him he was still alive in the first place had all blurred into one beneath the need to breathe when he’d been swept out of the fire and into the deep, lost as the warmth of the water – or whatever it was – had seeped into his aching body and left him nothing but exhaustion.

Coughing and spluttering cleared his mouth of some strange taste, metallic and wet, clinging to his tongue as his breathing slowed from _man on verge of death_ to _marathon runner in summer_ , and Kurogane lifted trembling hands to his face, staring at the shimmering drips that traced glittering rivulets over his skin.

_Yeah, that ain’t water – and hey, I got my fingernails back._

Not just his fingernails either: every cut and scratch that had ripped through his hands from the scrape of concrete or the crush of broken glass were healed, and even the old scars he’d earned from childhood misadventure were gone as though they’d never been. Now that he could breathe again (and had reached enough equilibrium to float) Kurogane tried to take stock of himself; felt the deep bellows of his breath unimpeded by a definitely-cracked rib, and kicked out half-heartedly with the foot attached to the ankle he’d been sure was broken. He still ached like he’d been beaten with a studded baseball bat, but nothing was _injured_ – apparently being torn to atomic shreds and rebuilt from scratch by tumbling through dimensions had done the trick.

“What the fuck.” Kurogane croaked the words out on the ghost of a laugh, too tired to give it body or breath. “I’m alive. Hurt too much to be dead.”

_“Chii!”_

Snapping his head up nearly sent him back under the surface again, but that familiar exclamation demanded he turn to see – and yeah, there she was, the catty brat that nearly killed him, grinning with those needle teeth as she drifted above the rippling lake of pinkish-silvery _whatever_ Kurogane was currently floating in, looking none the worse for wear and actually in better shape than when Kurogane saw her last. Her eyes were brown again, warm and melting with something like laughter, and as he watched she somersaulted, the floating gauze of her dress-robe-thing tumbling around her skinny body in wisps of white cloth and her tail lashing about in excitement.

“Chii,” she said again, and then “Omrtla ursviev! Omer tsrogn htna Chii htougth!”

Kurogane stared. Those were definitely words coming out of her mouth, the up-and-down rhythm of actual language rather than just random sounds – but whatever she was speaking, it wasn’t in any tongue used on Earth. _Shit. Am I even on the same planet anymore? Where the fuck am I?_ Also, why pick now of all times to break her silence – if she could talk before, then what the hell had the whole Chii-shtick been about?

“Ikgn ahpyp ot ese omrtla. Ikgn eb os lpeasde ot ese enw htign!”

Slowly, moving with the grace of a man half-dead, Kurogane rolled in the whatever-it-was buoying him up, shivering at the warm liquid slide that clung to his bare skin with gelid intensity. Somewhere in the whole travelling-between-Realms thing he’d clearly lost his clothes, and it was more than a bit strange to be skinny-dipping in a supernatural pond of pinky goop. Shimmering fluid sluiced softy through his fingers as he began to swim, moving for what he could now see was the edge of some stone pool, rough-hewn into the floor of what was probably a cavern – though he couldn’t have told you if it was natural or not. Each stroke was agonisingly slow and fair enough; it fucking hurt to move, and also he was trying to keep at least one eye on the entity floating above him, chittering away in that strange language of hers as though Kurogane could actually understand what the fuck she was saying.

“Ho! Ikng! Olko! Enw htign, enw htign!”

“Y acn ese htta, ilttel noe. Ubt eltss igev hte opro htign ha ommetn ot acthc ihs rbeaht ebfoer ew egt oto xecitde, mm?”

The second voice was not at all like the excited chirping of the creature above him: lilting and husky, it rippled with laughter and made Kurogane start, his sudden shock almost sending him below the surface again as he jerked mid-stroke and turned towards its source. The pool was a hell of a lot smaller than his first impressions of endless depths had suggested – not some endless ocean of glistening liquid that slipped and oozed around his limbs as he struggled, but more a small lake carved into stone, and somewhere close to the shore of this lake another entity lay resting on some unseen shelf, languid in their recline with the silver-blushed tide lapping at bare shoulders and shimmering across their skin.

 _Horns_ , was the first thing Kurogane thought, which was just as fucking obvious as the horns in question, knifing up from wet and tangled hair in elegant parabola as they did; his second thought came a little bit late, seeing as he was still stuck on the whole horns thing, but when it did it was simply _blue_ – because blue was all he could see now that the eyes burning in that fine-boned and utterly alien face had fixed upon him, their stare as hot and as bright as the blaze that had eaten Kurogane out of his own Realm and sent him falling in a crash of flame into this one.

Slowly, and with the movement of one approaching a wounded animal, the entity rose from their elegant sprawl. Pale shoulders, bare and broad, crested the rippling surface of the pool, silky streams of liquid trickling and pooling across the flat of a bare chest, across the muscle that flexed and slid beneath wet skin that gleamed like marble. Kurogane’s gaze caught on the lean taper of a torso that lead to a narrow waist and a ribcage that rose and fell with steady, calm breaths as the entity stepped off its perch and slipped smoothly below the surface. Those elegant, arcing horns disappeared with barely a ripple, and the entity bearing them all the more so; Kurogane started back, kicking out a little faster and moving towards the shoreline in earnest now.

He’d seen those eyes, their colour before: in Miss Not-A-Catgirl, the moment she’d gone feral and brown had flashed to blue. There was no such thing as coincidence when it came to the supernatural, and Kurogane knew without needing confirmation that whatever else the creature moving towards him below the surface was, it was definitely fucking dangerous. _Okay. Get out of the water, or whatever it is; get your feet under you. Get a weapon. Get clothes, and then get the fuck out of here, in that order._ It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was better than nothing, and Kurogane swam with definite purpose now he had it.

He was only a few metres from the edge of the pool when it started to shallow out, his toes brushing just barely at the gritty edge of wet stone, but he’d barely taken a single step on solid ground when ripples surrounded him and those same horns rose from the pool like ruins from the deep, the demon surging up between Kurogane and safety in a smooth motion that rocked him back in shock. “Gah!”

This close, he could see the entity was a head or so shorter than himself (the horns did make it a bit tricky to tell) and was, at least superficially, vaguely male in appearance even as much as they resembled the flitty little demon floating above them with pointy ears and cat-slit eyes – though Kurogane wasn’t about to go asking, and would keep his mouth politely shut and his assumptions to himself until informed otherwise. Offending a demon was not on his to-do list, and also his mother had raised him to have _manners_ , for fuck’s sake. The smile that curled thin, pale lips was definitely amused, wet hair dripping pale and tangled in burning blue eyes as the distance between them slipped to almost nothing in one smooth stroke forward.

“Ym paologise,” murmured the demon, voice slipping soft as velvet. They – _he_ said nothing Kurogane could understand and yet was somehow commanding; even only moments from escape, Kurogane found himself frozen, unable to move even as the entity drew closer. “Rbaec oyursefl.”

A hand, thin and elegant, rose dripping from the pool; lazy rivulets wound from wrist to elbow as the creature before him reached out, and the first touch of that hand to Kurogane’s face was mesmerising in its warmth. He shuddered, unwillingly so, desperate to retreat from that touch – but just as desperate to remain beneath it. Those eyes held him and would not look away, and so Kurogane could not either; could only wait, motionless ( _helpless_ ) as the liquid lapping between them both rippled with sudden movement, and the demon closed that small distance with the soft, hot slant of that smiling mouth over Kurogane’s own.

_—?!!_

Immediately the lips against his own parted hungrily, the wet push of a tongue into his mouth irresistible in its sudden force – it was less a kiss than a devouring, a thorough exploration that Kurogane instinctively tried to flinch away from. Except _tried_ was the operative word, because the cool hand on his face was like iron where it curled about his jaw and the demon so much stronger than he. Dizzying heat bloomed in his mouth, fire that he had to swallow in a single, burning gulp as that tongue swept and curled, tracing the lines of his teeth and stroking along his own with an intensity almost clinical; even so, he could feel his resistance melting, his heartbeat stuttering into full-blown panic beneath the urge to yield completely, and _that_ was enough for Kurogane to finally tear himself away with all the strength he had left and a loud splash that sent up a great spray between them.

“The _sweet fuck_ was _that_ ,” gasped Kurogane, half-flailing in an attempt to stay afloat. He dragged the back of his hand over his mouth to make a point of his disgust, angry and embarrassed and all too aware of how naked he was below the pearly pink waves that foamed around them. His mouth was still tingling, teeth sparking: it felt like licking a battery would feel, a crackle of strange energy bubbling across his tongue.

“A demon’s tongue for the demon’s tongue,” said the entity smoothly, the words both amused and _perfectly understandable_. “And a tongue for a tongue in truth. How else were you going to understand me? You clearly come from a different Realm than I.” Those lips, _the lips that had just kissed him_ , curved into a wry smile. “Now you have my speech and I have yours.”

“King spoils mortal,” crowed the other demon, the one Kurogane had _forgotten about entirely_ , swooping above them both in a spinning circle. “Chii had to learn speech hard way!”

“What,” said Kurogane, and then nothing else, unable to even think in the face of literally everything that had just happened. His mouth felt hot. His lips felt bruised.

“Well,” said the demon (the King? _What the fuck_ ) and smoothed the wet hair from his face with those elegant fingers, tucking it back behind the knifing points of his ears in curling strands. “This would be a lot easier to explain out of the pool. You’re welcome to stay there, if you like, though I myself am quite done for the night.”

He blinked languidly, feline and flirtatious, and Kurogane’s skin prickled all over with confused arousal and a healthy flush of dread. Two short strokes of elegant limbs and the demon reached the sloped shore, rising from the pool like a deity from the foam, nude and perfect and shimmering wet with his hair in dripping tangles and his horns rising in perfect crescents. Kurogane’s gaze dripped down the slope of his shoulders, down the long dark tail flowing down from the length of his spine, glossy coils curling and uncurling in slow, sinuous ripples, and he could not look away as it flicked up and outwards, the heart-shaped tip swaying like the serpent before the flute. Chii – because apparently that really was her name and not just a noise she liked to make – giggled and swooped closer, dropping a length of cloth into waiting hands, and as the demon turned Kurogane felt himself flush beneath the cool regard of impossibly blue eyes as the demon began to stroke the wetness from his skin.

“Are you coming, then?”

“Uh,” said Kurogane, and then “Yes?” because really, what the hell _else_ was he supposed to do? He swam closer, reaching the edge with hesitant steps on gritty stone, and found himself stumbling under the weight of that heavy gaze as he climbed ashore at last.

* * *

Kurogane’s footprints trailed wet over dry stone, surprisingly warm beneath his soles as he followed the demon – the King – with some unease, but seeing as his only other option was floating around in a pink pond for the rest of the night (and possibly until he drowned), it was the best route forward he could take. Probably. At any rate, Kurogane had actually managed to snag what passed for some kind of towel from Chii as she swooped along, leading them both into a tunnel. She was twisting and turning above their heads as she went, making the same happy chittering noise Kurogane had last heard when she’d been munching a mouthful of raw and scaly fish. She had plenty of room to move, at least: the clearance above them had to be three metres at the minimum, the tunnel tall and wide with warm, sandy-coloured stone walls, smoothed by time or some great force. Small orbs, phosphorescent flickers swirling in their milky depths, bobbed along the ceiling like little tugboats, casting a buttery glow over everything they floated past.

Kurogane gripped tight to the towel he’d wrapped around himself in a makeshift skirt, knotting its edges together as best he could to prevent slippage. He didn’t really have an issue with being naked exactly, but losing your clothes and crashlanding in the bathtub of a demon king was a lot different than, say, stripping off to take a dip at the local bathhouse. The entity before him, on the other hand, seemed about as concerned with his nudity as the average cat, i.e. not at all, and certainly the swaying strut of his strides and the sinuous wiggle of that long tail seemed to indicate he didn’t care a whit if Kurogane was watching him or not. (Which he wasn’t. Mostly. He had _eyes_ , so sue him.)

But walking in silence behind his host while Chii giggled wasn’t going to get him anywhere, and especially not home, so seeing as the demon didn’t seem to be actively hostile – and moreover kind of bemused by Kurogane’s general existence – it seemed a good idea to try and get his attention. Kurogane cleared his throat with a grunt, and reached out cautiously, aiming to snag an elbow or tap a shoulder. “Hey, so where are we going—?”

_“Ah!”_

Wriggling in Kurogane’s hand was definitely _not_ an arm even if it was a limb, his fingers catching on the demon’s tail and closing around it in complete reflex – something which was apparently _very_ startling for the creature himself, considering he immediately stiffened all over, a visible shudder rippling up his spine in a wave that crested his shoulders and made him gasp; those pointed ears flattened against his skull, his long neck arching back and his horns tipping as he trembled. Kurogane jumped back immediately, but the wires in his brain must have gotten crossed because _he_ _didn’t let go_ , his fingers slipping along the length of the tail in a long stroke over velvety skin and twitching muscle in a helpless spasm as he jerked backwards. Somehow Kurogane managed to unhook his hand at last, but the damage had already been done: he’d pet the poor bastard as though he were a fucking cat, and the dangerous glint in hot blue eyes as the demon spun around promised there was hell to pay for taking such liberty.

“Uh,” said Kurogane – squeaked Kurogane, really, because he couldn’t fucking do anything else beneath the cold hand that was suddenly at his throat in a choking hold, shoving him back hard enough to flatten him against the tunnel wall. Sandy stone scraped at the bare skin of Kurogane’s back in a warm itch as the demon reared up against him, eyes burning and quite a lot of sharp teeth bared in a hiss. The claws at the ends of iron fingers pricked like needles, terribly close to arteries and veins and all sorts of vital-but-soft tissue, and a dull sense of amazement filtered through Kurogane’s frozen shock at the realisation his feet weren’t touching the ground.

_Holy shit. That is way more attractive than it has right to be._

“Do not,” said the demon, words clipped and voice dripping with venom, “do _that_.”

Kurogane swallowed with considerable difficulty. “Right. Sorry.”

The demon let go immediately, drawing back defensively, and those eyes were wary as they tracked across Kurogane’s face. “I would be careful, mortal. Try that with any other demon, and you’ll likely find yourself on the floor and ravished six ways ‘til dawn.” Blue eyes narrowed then, something wicked curving that mouth into a sultry smile. “Unless, of course, that was your aim…?”

The heat in Kurogane’s face was scalding. “ _No_.”

A feathery eyebrow rose. “Well. Keep your hands to yourself then, and we won’t have a problem.” That was a bit rich coming from a guy who’d literally stuck his tongue in Kurogane’s mouth within five seconds of meeting him, but seeing as he’d just narrowly avoided having his throat ripped out for accidentally making a pass at the same creature that had dragged him backwards through fire into this Realm in the first place, Kurogane was going to keep his mouth shut and his hands tucked into his metaphorical belt. His real belt, along with his dagger and his coat and his boots, had apparently burnt up in the process of being exorcised, and Kurogane had to admit he missed them a lot – almost as much as he missed his pants.

Hell, even his badge was gone: melted away into nothing, the protective overlay of its power dissolved beneath the force and the might of the flames that had swallowed him. Kurogane wasn’t stupid – the flames were blue, Chii’s eyes had been blue, and now the demon king with those same blue eyes was playing host in a completely different Realm. It didn’t take a fucking genius to figure out who was responsible for dragging him here in the first place, and would probably be the only one who could send him back. The trick was coming up with a way to convince His Majesty to play along.

The tunnel was sloping to an end now, those light orbs clustering around what looked like a doorway, complete with heavy stone door and huge brass handle. Whatever was on the other side seemed to please his host, as he made a happy little noise – one that sounded eerily like a purr – as Chii swooped down to pull at it. Against the heavy metal ring, her hands looked tiny, but she seemed able to lift it easily enough. “Thank you, sweetling,” said the demon, tapping a small ankle as he drew closer, Kurogane following in his wake.

 _I should probably ask now, while he’s in a good mood_.

“Look, uh, your Majesty – why did you bring me here?”

The demon paused and turned back, blue eyes blinking guilelessly at him. “Eh? _Your Majesty_?”

Kurogane scowled, hating the flush that crawled up his neck at that incredulous look. “She – Chii called you King before, so I thought—”

The King of the Demons, if that was really his title, snorted loudly. His nose wrinkled charmingly, a brief glint of very white and very sharp teeth licking across his mouth as his lip curled in something like a smile. “Oh dear. The interpretation spell – the one I cast when I kissed you – is very literal, I’m afraid. Chii calls me ‘King’ because I am her _elder_ , and it is a sign of respect in our tongue. I imagine it does not translate well into yours. I’m no ruler, not at all.” His grin faded, taking a sombre edge as his lips curved downwards. “One would need a kingdom to rule, after all, and there’s not much left here but ruins.”

That statement encouraged more questions than it answered, none of which Kurogane had the time or the patience for. “Well, King or not, you brought me here with that fancy blue flame of yours – I know it was _you_ that took over my circle and warped my casting.”

The stone door clanked and creaked as it opened into the tunnel, Chii huffing in satisfaction as she swooped up to the ceiling once more. Light poured out in its wake, warm and golden, but the demon’s eyes were so, so cold when he caught Kurogane with them, holding him frozen beneath the weight of that terrible blue gaze.

“Why did you attack my child?” He asked softly. “Answer me that, mortal, and perhaps I won’t skin you where you stand.”

Kurogane started at both the question and the threat, stunned at the sheer depth of the fury in those glowing eyes. _Attack?_ _Your child?_ “What? I didn’t attack her – she attacked me!” He blurted it out without thought, and immediately wished he hadn’t – the demon in question was doing a very good job at being cute and innocent where she hovered near the roof of the tunnel, batting playfully at the floating orbs with the spade of her tail and giggling as they scattered and bobbed. She didn’t exactly resemble the murderous creature that had nearly taken Kurogane’s head off his shoulders with a single swipe.

That furious gaze suggested the demon didn’t buy it. “You cast a circle and trapped her in purifying flame – very impressive, by the by, for a mortal with the magical aptitude of a turnip, but terrifying for one so young to endure.” Despite the backhanded compliment, there wasn’t anything kind about the words, and Kurogane had a sudden and vivid image of those very sharp claws coming back for his throat once more. “Chii was delayed in her return to me, and I felt her fear reach through the Veil. When I looked to see what had frightened her so, I saw you through the fire and knew you were the cause of her fears.” The demon drew himself up taller, the arc of his horns imperious and blue eyes absolutely glacial. “You wrought a binding of immense power upon a creature with intent to harm, and you are surprised there are consequences?”

Kurogane flushed with guilt he only partially deserved. “It wasn’t meant to hurt her – I didn’t mean for that, just to exorcise her. I was trying to send her back where she came from in the first place, so she wouldn’t cause more damage.” The rage in blue eyes faded, the demon’s face turning thoughtful as Kurogane continued. “She, uh. Your kid broke into an aquarium, scared the staff and patrons, and tried to eat the sea life on display.”

Never mind that the only fish Chii had actually eaten had been the ones freed from the tank that broke when Kurogane threw her into it. Which… was probably still broken and surrounded by dead fish. Shit. Sumeragi was going to be so pissed at the cleanup bill – no, worse, he was going to be _disappointed_ , and Kurogane would have to stand there the whole time while his boss looked at him with big sad eyes and said _I expected so much better of you, Kurogane_ in that kind voice of his while shaking his head and sighing. Being sent to another Realm was almost preferable to _that_.

“Honestly, I didn’t know it hurt to be exorcised – all I was trying to do was stop her from hurting someone else.”

A long moment passed beneath the weight of that glare, long enough that sweat pricked the back of Kurogane’s neck, trickling cold and damp between his shoulder blades. “You would swear this? That your intentions were not to harm her?”

“I swear.” Making an oath to a demon was exactly the kind of behaviour that would land Kurogane a guest spot at a memorial dedicated to the victims of Extremely Bad Decisions one day, but seeing as he didn’t have any other options, it was going to have to do.

Slowly, the ice in those eyes melted. “If that is truly the case – and believe me, if you have lied to me it shall be the last thing you ever do – then I owe you an apology.” That… was not exactly what Kurogane had been expecting, but he’d take it. A remorseful demon was much easier to deal with than a vengeful one. “You must understand,” the demon continued, and somehow that uneasy smile conveyed a wince even as that lilting voice spoke, “Chii is my first child, and my only attempt so far at crafting an impling; I hadn’t really perfected the spell yet. She’s very young, so some misbehaviour is to be expected, but for her to cause wanton damage to her surrounds is beyond expectation. I take full responsibility for her actions and will be more than happy to provide wergild for the cost of damages.”

There was a lot to unpack in that explanation, and not all of it Kurogane understood, but apparently the demon felt he’d explained himself admirably and turned his back once more. “Come along then,” he added, the words tossed carelessly over one milky shoulder. The dark tip of his tail, heart-shaped and pointed squarely at Kurogane’s face as though to beckon him onwards, swayed merrily as the demon slipped through the heavy stone doorway, Chii tumbling along in his wake in a froth of giggles with her arms full of glowing orbs. Not wanting to be left behind, Kurogane hurried along after, and was damn near blinded by warm light as he left the relative darkness of the tunnel for the room beyond.

Kurogane had seen throne-rooms and great halls and castles before, in historical docudramas and movies, in manga and blazoned over the cover of the cheap fantasy novels Kobato liked to read on her lunchbreak. He’d even gone and visited the Shogun’s palace before on a school trip, and admired the simplicity of purpose in the nightingale floors throughout the sprawling complex and the elegant design that leant itself to military fortification as well as it did the politics of court. What Kurogane had never seen was anything like _this_.

Stalactites and stalagmites met in twisting columns, natural born pillars that rose and fell beneath the cavernous ceiling, sandy stone blushing warm beneath the glow of thousands of orbs floating in drifting currents around them as they ebbed and flowed on some unseen tide. Before him stretched a pathway worn to a shine by centuries of footsteps, flowing smoothly through the labyrinthine gallery of columns to the base of a plateau surrounded by opaloid liquid that welled from inset basins in pools of dusty pink, their rippling surfaces fluorescent with the light that swept over them. The chamber stretched deep and wide, almost endless; some great hall carved into the heart of a mountain and dripping with jewels, weeping from stony walls and ceiling in glittering veins that dazzled the eye.

Silken banners fluttered in great swathes of rainbow draperies, every colour Kurogane knew and then some beyond; they hung from the ceiling, draped pillars in curtaining drifts, puddled forgotten on the sandy ground in tangled heaps where they had fallen. Seats and tables carved from stone lay abandoned, some fallen on their sides, and all were covered in the sandstone dust of long disuse. To the edge of the cavern, far to Kurogane’s left, yawned a great open space: a window without glass, sweeping to the vault of the sky that seethed in purple twilight beyond. Dull flickers of umber light crackled inside violet clouds, tumbling in hills and valleys across an uncanny firmament, and in its eerie expanse there were great islands of stone floating in collapsing peaks, unmoored and abandoned as they crumbled beneath the distant storm and calved great shards to plummet through the space below. It was beautiful, all of it, even in its destruction; undeniably so, but somehow it seemed so, so _empty_ – Chii’s laughter echoing into solemn space like music, distorted and reverberating into whispering nothing as the sound was swallowed by the sheer vastness of the space before them.

“We were so many once,” said the demon softly, and Kurogane almost jumped at the sudden reminder of his presence. “And now we are gone.” The sombre shadow that passed over alien features was not one Kurogane could even begin to understand, not with a century to study it.

“Where?” said Kurogane. Maybe it wasn’t polite to interrupt a being so clearly in mourning, but then tact had never been Kurogane’s strong suit, and impatience a weakness beside. “What… what happened? To your people?”

“War and sickness; death and greed and despair. All manner of things.” Shutters seemed to fall over blue eyes, a different Veil than the one Kurogane knew, but no less a barrier between worlds. “That’s not what we’re here for, however,” said the demon sharply, smile twisting in some gross parody of cheerfulness. “Chii! My sweetling, gather your things – we mustn’t delay!” His words echoed, ringing clear with what sounded like magic but was merely acoustics, cleverly engineered to reflect sound through the hall before them.

 _“Chii!”_ The enthusiastic chirrup rippled out of hearing as Chii herself did of sight, disappearing into the vastness in a flutter of gauzy dress and a snap of her wiggling tail.

The demon smiled more truly, then, casting a glance sidelong to Kurogane with something almost real in the curve of his mouth as he sighed. “She’s so young, it makes _me_ feel younger just to be around her. Part of me hopes she never grows up.” Some sense of purpose seemed to come over him then, the demon striding briskly forth and ducking through to an alcove Kurogane had almost missed, tucked into the shadow of a pillar and draped in shimmering hangings. Unlike the rest of the cavern, it looked more frequently used: the floor nearby was free of dusty footprints. “But then why else would we have children if we didn’t want to watch them grow?” came the call, muffled as he slipped from view.

“She really is your kid, then?” asked Kurogane, more for lack of anything else to say; the sudden flurry of the demon’s movements and the implications of a hurry were unnerving on their own, and foreboding with the brontide rumble from beyond the cavern, the distant purple sky growing darker and more violent by the moment as orange lightning burst and cracked. Whatever was going on in this Realm, whatever had happened to its peoples – _gone_ , the demon had said, and Kurogane wouldn’t bet a damn cent that they were coming back – it was something this creature clearly had no intention of sticking around for. Meaning Kurogane himself should probably figure out how to get the fuck out of here too.

“My impling, yes. I was surprised at how well the spell took, to be honest. The mana drought had reached critical levels ere I even thought to try to craft her, and perhaps that is why her growth is so stunted – she’s so small, she hasn’t even got her horns yet!” Rustling sounds echoed those words, muffled as they were – almost like the demon was trying to speak to him with a jumper pulled over his fool head. _Wouldn’t work,_ thought Kurogane dismissively. _He wouldn’t be able to get it over his damn horns._

“I used almost all we had left in store, and then some of my own besides,” came the further explanation, which was probably meant to make more sense to Kurogane than it actually did, i.e. none whatsoever. “Luckily, the wells have had some time to refill since then. I was in the middle of replenishing myself when you came tumbling up from below. Honestly, I didn’t expect you to survive – but I’m glad you did!”

“Great,” said Kurogane, feeling more antsy by the minute. The storm outside was really picking up now, buffeting winds that he couldn’t feel rolling through the clouds in turbulent waves that warped the lightning ripping through them, and if he was going to meet the end of a world (not even his _own_ world, at that) he really didn’t want to do it mostly naked and still kinda damp with the dripping remnants of glittery soup. He gripped his makeshift skirt a little tighter. “I wasn’t really planning on dying today anyway.” Or any day, for that matter.

“Even better!” This time the demon sounded a lot clearer, enough that Kurogane turned around again to see if he’d finished doing whatever in that alcove of his – and was promptly _whump_ ed in the face with a bundle of cloth. “Put that on, would you? I can’t have you burning up in transit.”

Kurogane snatched at the whatever-it-was that had just pelted him in the face and crumpled it up in one hand as he pulled it off his face. _Transit?_ “You’re sending me home?” That… was easier than anticipated. A lot easier. He’d kinda been expecting to have to barter with his immortal soul or some shit to get himself a demonic ticket out of here, so for Blonde and Horny to just offer it out of the blue was more than a little confusing. “Why would you do– _uh._ Hrm. Why would you do that.”

It was _meant_ to be a question, but it came out in a grunt, the words thickening in Kurogane’s throat to the point he could barely speak around them, and he had to clear his throat twice to even cough them out. The demon had been buck-fucking-naked before, so seeing him now in gauzy dress, silk clinging to sinewy limbs and draping his lithe frame in diaphanous drifts that dripped over pale skin in sheer cascade, should not have been that distracting. But it was. _Fuck_. Seeing less meant so much more now, suddenly, and Kurogane’s face was hot as he jerked his head to the side, staring blankly at a stalactite above as his pulse thudded in the base of his throat.

_Shit. Get it together, you idiot. Don’t stare at the incredibly powerful and incredibly dangerous entity approaching you, even if he is dressed like he stepped straight out of a harem fantasy._

“I didn’t think you would help me,” he managed, after a few seconds of mental arithmetic. Counting fractions did nothing for his distraction as the demon swept closer, his tail swaying behind each graceful step. That heart-shaped tip wove hypnotic whorls that caught the eye, despite the eye’s best fucking intentions to not be caught in the first place. “I thought – I thought you were going to kill me.”

“ _Kill_ you?” The demon sounded so wounded that Kurogane had to look – and caught the flicker of mischief in the depths of blue even as that wicked mouth quirked into the most shit-eating grin Kurogane had ever seen. “You poor thing. Why in any Realm would I kill you? Oh no, I wouldn’t dream of it.” That fair head dipped low as the demon’s grin widened, the shadows of his horns stark lines across his face. Lips that Kurogane knew were terribly soft curled back in such sheer and violent joy that sharp teeth were suddenly exposed, wiping away any thoughts Kurogane had that he might yet survive this as though they had never been. “You’re not the only one planning an escape, you see. I’m not going to kill you – I’m going to _use_ you, and for that I need you very much alive.”

* * *

The slick shiver of strange cloth tumbled across Kurogane’s shoulders, as light as spiders’ web and twice as clingy – clingy enough that Kurogane felt like a thousand fingertips were trailing down his spine as he shrugged into the robe he’d been offered. Weird demon-spun fabric or not, it was better than meeting some kind of apocalypse wearing a towel (or naked, for that matter). Didn’t mean he was all that comfortable with the thoughtful way the demon was walking around him as he dressed, or the heavy feel of that gaze as it trailed over him.

“Don’t ogle,” snapped Kurogane, on the fraying edge of his very last nerve. “It itches.”

Blue eyes blinked at him. “You _are_ very sensitive, aren’t you?” clucked the demon thoughtfully. “It amazes me that your aura can be so tightly-woven without any obvious magical aptitude. You claim you are an exorcist?”

“No claiming about it,” grunted Kurogane, already annoyed and heading quickly towards pissed. Two and a half years and more successful exorcisms than Kurogane could actually count were pretty fucking strong evidence against the demon’s disbelief. “Don’t need magic to make a circle or banish an entity. Just need the tools and the know-how.” And the strength of mind, too, but that went without saying. It was an argument Kurogane had had so many times over, and not one he particularly felt like repeating. “And stop looking at my aura – you’ll put holes in it.”

Kurogane wasn’t expecting the demon to laugh, but he did, and it was _stunning_ : soft and rasping and all the more thrilling for how unexpected it was. The sound slipped along the edge of Kurogane’s hearing like the demon’s aura brushed up against his own: nudging, pressing, teasing. It felt like being kneaded with cat-claws, prickling and sharp but somehow soothing for it, and he shuddered in something close to arousal. Too close for his own comfort, considering how thinly he was dressed – not that the demon himself was much better, all slender limbs and the play of wiry muscle beneath smooth pale skin, the gauzy draperies of his clothing only highlighting the body beneath rather than making any good on the attempt to conceal it.

“You’re so _tight_ ,” purred the demon, slinking closer, close enough to touch now and clearly enjoying it. Kurogane backed up a step out of sheer instinct, and then stepped forward once more in embarrassed anger – at himself or at the demon, he couldn’t say. “There’s not a chink in your armour, not a crack I can wriggle into. I’ve never seen a mortal with such a strong sense of self before, and I have to say, it’s _wonderful_.”

“That’s great and all, but I’m not a plaything and I want to go home.” It wasn’t exactly a snarl, but it was only a breath from it – the same angry breath Kurogane drew in through gritted teeth and hissed out in dragging tempo as his temper swelled like a wave from rib to rib. “You want to use me for a transportation spell, yeah? Then fucking _get on with it_.” Okay, _now_ he was snarling, something Kurogane couldn’t really help, but damn did he regret it as blue eyes flashed from liquid heat to crystal cold, the teasing air surrounding the demon subzeroing so quickly it made his head spin.

“I have no need to grant your wish, mortal,” rumbled the demon, voicing dipping low enough Kurogane’s bones throbbed in echo. That dark tail lashed violently, rearing up like a cobra before the strike with heart-tip flared and pointed. “I may need you alive for now, but not for always. Your survival is incidental, and entirely at my whim. _Remember that_ ,” and this a hiss, one quick hand snatching Kurogane by the folds of his borrowed clothing, claws hooking into silky cloth and dragging him forward with such speed his damp feet slipped across the stony floor. “I could boil your blood where you stand, turn your skin to lather and watch it foam and bubble, split you open like ripe fruit and drag your entrails out in bloody ropes–”

“Ooh, I’m fucking _terrified_ ,” spat Kurogane, and curled his own hand around the demon’s, squeezing his fingers in encirclement of that bony wrist with all the force he could bring to bear. “Spare me the intimidation shtick. If you’re gonna kill me, than _just do it_ – don’t dance around it like a fucking coward.” This time it was Kurogane’s turn to pull, yanking the demon off his feet and forcing him close, close enough Kurogane could feel his own body heat leaching out into cold, cold skin. “You think I’m scared of you? _Tch_. I’ve exorcised scarier _garden gnomes_ than you, pretty boy.” Kurogane pulled harder, the gossamer _skriiip_ of nails clawing through thin cloth a symphony as the demon trembled upwards in his hold. “Go on then. Use me as your focus; cast your little spell. I’ll break your circle open from the inside, _just watch me_.”

Blue eyes were wide where Kurogane looked down into them, so deep as to be fathomless. The demon shivered, fingers twitching in Kurogane’s grip, those cat-slit pupils blown out to startled roundness. “You think I’m pretty?” he whispered, soft lips parting on a sigh so dreamy it flushed Kurogane’s face with heat just to hear it, let alone feel the feathery curl of wispy breath tickling against skin far too warm for comfort.

“ _That’s_ what you took away from that? That I think you’re pretty?” The incredulousness in his words should have been insulting, but to the demon it clearly wasn’t, the tip of a pink tongue licking over the edges of white teeth with slow deliberation as he smiled – with melting heat in blue eyes that crinkled at their laughing corners, with a wry curl to that catty mouth that spoke of mischief soon unleashed – and the tangle of sudden heavy wanting that knotted in Kurogane’s gut was completely unwanted, and also possibly the worst fucking idea he’d ever had.

“I don’t even know your name,” blurted Kurogane, because he was _clearly_ in full control of his faculties, and also not about to do something really stupid like ask an eldritch being for the power to call and bind it.

“Tell me yours and I’ll tell you mine,” husked the demon in his arms, voice curling like smoke and dizzying the small space between them with its throaty implication. This time it was Kurogane who shivered. _That_ was a spectacularly terrible idea, absolutely something he should not do even if it meant being able to call the demon something other than ‘the demon’ in his own head, and also Sumeragi would probably smack him a good one for even just thinking– well, no, Sumeragi would just do the sad eyes and disappointed head shake combo again, which was just as painful as getting clipped about the ear but let the bad feeling linger twice as long, and Kurogane _really_ needed to stop looking into those eyes, those blue, _blue eyes_ , wasn’t there something about a demon’s gaze being hypnotic? Fuck, it was just so _hard_ to look away—

“Call me Fai,” murmured the demon, murmured _Fai_ , the name warm and soft and sighing. “My full name is so long you wouldn’t remember it, and also I don’t think your tongue can twist the right way to say it anyway.”

“Kurogane.” It slipped out before he could think twice about it, but as soon as he said it any sense of dread evaporated – so what if the demon knew his name? They were both working towards the same aim, namely getting the hell outta here before whatever chunk of rock they were floating on joined the rest of the islands crashing down through the sky. Which. Which they should probably be concentrating on, rather than this… other thing they were doing.

“My name is Kurogane.” _Well done, idiot. Can we move on from how pretty he is at some point? Also, let go of his hand_ _already_. Kurogane dropped Fai’s wrist with a twitch of his fingers, jerking back to get a little more space between them. Except he was still in Fai’s own grip, and all he achieved was the tearing shudder of silk fraying beneath the points of those claws as the robe-wrap-thing he’d pulled around his shoulders split right down the middle in a dragging _rrrrripp-!_ that left it hanging open over his chest and Kurogane suddenly aware of how little the clothes he’d been given actually covered. It was almost worse than having no clothes at all.

“Ah,” said Fai, and winced. “My apologies. I forgot how easily manaweave cloth can tear...” Freeing his claws with a delicate flick, the demon looked almost sheepish, ears twitching awkwardly as he ducked his head. Actually, with the horns he looked more than just _almost_ sheepish, and Kurogane couldn’t decide if that was somehow worse. “Ahmm. _Well_. Torn or not, I suppose it doesn’t matter – you’re only wearing that to shield you from the Veil when you go through it. Manaweave cloth will not burn, and no matter how little you wear it should be enough.” Taking a cautious step backwards, Fai straightened his shoulders, slipping back into the stately mien he wore so easily. “Kurogane,” he said softly, and the way his mouth curled around the sounds made them strangely musical. “A strong name for a strong man.”

The demon stood tall, the horns that crowned him heavy and proud as he lifted his chin, and the melting heat that had made blue eyes irresistible cooling with distance and determination like steel tempered. The alien nature of the being before him hammered home like a blow square to the chest, Kurogane’s heart thudding in the cage of his ribs. _I’m no ruler, not at all_ , Fai had said earlier – but the way he stood now made it hard to see him as anything but a king, even one with his kingdom gone to ruins around him, and his world breaking apart piece by piece.

“How do we do this?” Kurogane took a deep breath, rolling his own shoulders back to square and centring himself against the pounding of his pulse, heartbeat loud as it leapt in his throat. “What do you need me to do?”

_“King! King! Chii has thing! Thing Chii can’t leave behind!”_

The zipping whip of a small demon weaving through stone columns and fluttering banners at great speed was loud enough to break the moment, whatever it was, and Kurogane watched Fai startle like a fawn as he snapped around to catch his daughter’s approach. The soft look on his face was definitely that of a father – Kurogane’s own dad still looked at him like that sometimes, and it made the same kind of tightness ease in his chest, a knot loosening Kurogane hadn’t even known was tied up in the first place. “Chii – oh dear. Sweetling, you know you can’t possibly take all of that.”

Tiny hands were overflowing with a froth of silk, tangled around a not small amount of masonry – sparkly masonry, to be sure, jewelled stone clearly chipped right out of the walls of some cavern beyond the great hall, but basically just a damn big rock all wrapped up in what was probably a torn banner and bundled into thin arms. Chii didn’t seem to be having trouble carrying her treasure, as heavy as it looked, and her tail still wiggled with as much enthusiasm as Kurogane had ever seen from her.

“Oh, but Chii must! Chii brings part of home along, see?” A shrug of a shoulder and silk slipped, a long section rustling free to bare the stone beneath: a broken chunk of wall, engraved with a section of some demonic fresco, runes and shapes that made Kurogane’s eyes water a little to look upon, each line strangely fluid for all that it was carved into solid rock. “This here King’s name. Chii too. When King made Chii, King made mark right here – made Chii _real_. Chii can’t leave behind to be broken.” She swooped closer, tail curling shyly as she fluttered close to Fai. “Chii can leave other things behind. But Chii wants this.” Carefully, slowly, she dipped low – just low enough to rest her forehead gently against Fai’s, closing her eyes as she rubbed their noses together. “Chii will remember home when Chii with King, always.”

The gesture was tender, enough that Kurogane felt he had to look away for a little bit to give at least the illusion of privacy as Fai’s hand rose to card clawed fingertips gently through Chii’s tangled hair. It was a moment that deserved more time than they had to give – the stone beneath their feet was rumbling now, the faintest vibration rolling warm like oncoming thunder. It was distant, but it was coming, the end of this world riding on the storm and the sooner they made to leave, the better. When Kurogane had waited for as long as he could for the pair to compose themselves once more he coughed gently, face warm, and turned back to catch the grateful little quirk to Fai’s smile.

“Well,” said the demon at last, lilting voice thickened around its edges. “Shall we?” Chii chirruped happily as Fai’s fingers trailed from her hair, wrapping her chunk of masonry up tight in her scrap of banner once more and clutching it to her chest with thin arms. The determination of her hold was clear, and the cheesy smile she gave Kurogane was filled with sharp teeth, but somehow it made a charming picture – beneath the demonic exterior, she really was just like a little kid.

“Chii!”

_Guess kids are the same no matter which side of the Veil they come from._

Kurogane snorted, folding his arms. “You’re the one who wants to use me as a damn focus. Am I casting a circle or what?”

The soft indulgence in Fai’s face hardened as his gaze slid from his daughter to Kurogane, melted away completely to bare the regal cast to alien features as his jaw tightened and his mouth drew thin. “If you would,” said Fai coolly. “Proceed as though you mean to perform a binding – an _exorcism_ – but direct your will _inwards_ , rather than out as you walk. Take care to hold your destination in mind, and you need not speak the ritual you normally would. One can never truly escape the Realm that birthed them, and it is _that_ connection we will draw upon to forge a path, not an incantation. You don’t need magic to cast a circle, as you said.” Fai chuckled, a brief flicker of amusement in the curl of his lips. “When the circle is ready to close, I will aid you in parting the Veil – you will need my assistance to create a portal stable enough to hold the three of us.”

Kurogane grunted. Most of that made sense. He’d been expecting magical mumbo jumbo, but Fai’s instructions were simple enough. “And then what?”

Fai’s smile faded. His eyes burned blue in the cool shadows of his horns. “We step into the fire.”

“Great,” said Kurogane, because it figured his Thursday night off _would_ be the one where he was dragged through flames to hell and back again. “You better step back – I need space.” A candle would be good, or a knife even better, but he’d work with what he had. Which was basically nothing. Not exactly the best way to start a casting, but the air here was so thick with magic Kurogane couldn’t imagine it failing, even if he walked the circle without anything at all.

Still, the demon and his daughter stepped back as he’d asked, barefoot on dusty stone, and against the back drop of the boiling violet sky they were a strange audience indeed: one small demon, hovering in place with tail whipping about in obvious excitement and her arms full of magical masonry; another demon beside her, bright of eye and sharp of horn, and also like to come out with some smartarse remark if Kurogane fucked this up. Fai’s tail was moving too, though in a far statelier manner – slow back-and-forth undulations as opposed to Chii’s frantic twitching.

“ _Tch_. It’s been a while since I’ve done this with anyone watching,” muttered Kurogane, mostly to himself. “ _You_ ,” he added, pointing squarely at Chii; she squeaked and ducked behind Fai, wriggling down in mid-air to hide in his slender shadow despite the fact she was laden down with a huge chunk of rock. “You stay out of my damn way. No interfering this time.”

Fai snorted, the sound almost human. “Actually, that was _me_. You can lay the blame for your circle breaking on my shoulders, Kurogane. Poor Chii was merely in the wrong place at the right time.” The grin that flashed across his face was purely demonic, however. “Broken glass was an interesting choice of medium, I thought – and the dead fish were an _especial_ touch.”

That remark wasn’t worth glaring at the demon for, especially since Kurogane had already started walking. Three times around, and then three times and three times again; it wasn’t often he went for the classic three-threes foundation for a circle – honestly, it took too long and most of the entities he exorcised weren’t worth the energy it cost to bother – but since he had nothing to cut sigils with and no line but his footprints on stone, he wasn’t going to cut corners with a half-assed casting. Knowing how his night had been so far, he’d probably end up leaving something important behind in transit if he tried it. Like an arm, or maybe an eye, neither of which he was particularly keen to lose.

On the third set of his last three circuits, Kurogane felt the binding catch: the jarring shudder of something in his chest clicking into place at last, like the pins on a lock as the key slid home. The energy crackling beneath his skin simmered with each step, barely contained by his aura, and his footsteps filled with fire, tiny white flames flickering into being between his toes. The stone beneath his feet was warm and rumbling with the fierce storm that shook the sky beyond the empty cavern, and each breath was thick like syrup when Kurogane dragged it in, the weight of that power on his tongue so heavy as to be almost solid. He struggled as it coalesced, a stone between his teeth that grew heavier still, threatening to drag him down as each step further wound the circle closer to completion like a spring pulling tight and ready to burst. _Not long now._ Sweat, prickling and hot, pooled at the nape of Kurogane’s neck; trickled wet and cloying down the path between his shoulders, sizzling into nothing as it dripped into the fire as he walked.

“ _Yes_ ,” hissed Fai, and now his eyes were bright, brighter than Kurogane had seen before. They were painful to look at in their intensity, the flames of the circle glowing hot in their depths and with pupils so thin they were razors: a line of darkness that slashed through drowning blue. “Chii, the circle – go now. Do not cross the line.” No protest from Chii, not a peep of sound – she slipped into the circle in a fluttering wisp, tail tucked in close and eyes wide as she watched them both from as far back in its shape as she possibly could. “Are you ready, Kurogane?”

“Almost.” The word gritted through Kurogane’s teeth, a barely grunted breath as his steps drew shorter now, closer to the end. Flame, shimmering without heat, smouldered around his ankles. The metaphysical wedge of the circle’s opening was squeezing shut, and the strain of holding it open was not easy at all, a yoke across Kurogane’s shoulders that dragged leaden steps behind him. “Get in. _Now_.” Fai didn’t linger; just stepped quickly and cleanly in front of Kurogane, all limbs held close and his eyes sharp on Kurogane’s face. The static energy pouring off the barrier line fluttered through his hair, leaving fine strands to drift in a pale cloud between the shapes of pointed ears and the arch of his horns. Kurogane, thinking absurdly of _dandelions_ of all things, took that last and most important step: an aching gasp tore loose from his chest as the casting sealed in a rush of power that left him shaking, trembling on the fiery line between in and out as his knees quivered.

“Easy,” said Fai, and there was a cool hand around his elbow, a gentle tug that drew him in from the flame – and the crush lifted from Kurogane’s ribcage at last, breath rushing into his lungs with the urgency of white water rapids, crashing oxygen into his blood in its foaming wake. “ _Easy_. You really are spectacularly talented for a mortal, you know,” said Fai cheerfully, the rise-and-fall of his voice a steady cadence that Kurogane struggled to mirror between the pounding tattoo of his pulse and the desperate greedy gulps of air he choked down.

“You should,” gasped Kurogane, black spots dancing in the blur of his vision, “you should meet my _boss_.” Actually, no, that was a fucking terrible idea – Sumeragi had high enough blood pressure without adding what Kurogane suspected was the first class-SSS entity to make human contact to the mix. And gods-fucking-forbid Fai should ever be in the same room as _Hokuto_. It really would be the end of the world, then. “Can we go yet?” Kurogane managed to grunt, at least a minute later. Fai’s hand was running up his spine in a flat-palmed stroke, and through layers of silky fabric that firm touch felt so nice it was fucking torture.

“Only when you are ready. I need to open the Veil, and that’s going to hit you harder than your casting did.”

“Just. Just fucking _do it_.” Kurogane didn’t have the breath to snarl, but he could glare with everything he had left. Fai’s eyebrows, fair and feathery as they were, climbed high for a moment – but Kurogane was so far past exhaustion he was into the red zone beyond, and he didn’t care anymore. For the second time in as many hours, he wrapped his hand around Fai’s wrist, the vice of his fingers squeezing tightly closed. “C’mon. Lemme see how a demon does it.”

Fai laughed, and it was like before: raspy and real and so attractive it was unfair. “Very well,” he said, and the edge of his voice curled velvet around the power that rumbled beneath his words, a building brontide that made Kurogane’s chest ache. “My apologies for doubting you.” His free hand rose, thin fingers twisting as though to pinch something. “Chii, sweetling, stay where you are – do not move. You will be safe, for I am here.” It felt like he wasn’t just talking to his daughter alone, and Kurogane hated to admit how comforting that actually was. But then Fai moved his fingers in the smallest, gentlest of ways and the sound of the Veil tearing open scythed through Kurogane like he was paper, a ripping sensation that rippled down his spine and extended to his fingertips, icy needles prickling in its shredding wake.

He gasped, the breath squeezed from his lungs like water from a sponge and the world blurring as that unreal space opened once more. The flames were high and white and their drain on his energy _incredible_ , an abyssal yawning that opened in his chest, and Kurogane staggered to one knee as the strength bled from him completely. Only Fai’s hold on his arm kept him from toppling over, and Kurogane hissed curses between his teeth. _Fuck. Do I even have enough in me to keep the circle closed?_

“You will not falter,” said Fai, his voice as gentle as his grip was not, an iron band clasped around his elbow that forced Kurogane to his feet once more. “Brace yourself, Kurogane.”

The words felt familiar, somehow, and Kurogane squinted in confusion as Fai’s hand drew him closer with slow but irresistible force. “What are you—?”

Except he never finished the question, not as Fai surged up onto his toes in the same movement he coaxed Kurogane down, that soft mouth pressed over his own with gentle grace. Lips parted, a slip of sweet sensation that Kurogane could only yield to, and he shuddered into the kiss as it deepened. The emptiness that ached in his chest burst with sudden, thrilling power as Fai sighed into his mouth, his breath simmering with magic that poured into Kurogane like wine into a cup, Fai’s own strength filling him up as it bled into every painful crack in his aura and forced them to a smouldering close. It crept into his bones, a warmth that soaked him to the marrow, chasing away hurt and exhaustion and leaving only the invigorating buzz of power in its rippling wake. With power like this, Kurogane could hold strong against the drain for _centuries_.

“ _Now_ ,” whispered Fai, a stroke of lip against lip – and then fire was everything Kurogane knew, blue flame roaring up about the barrier in a wall of heat and scorching light that swallowed him whole.

* * *

It wasn’t the same as the first time, the burning; for a start, it wasn’t half as painful. Maybe the scraps of silk Fai had wrapped him in really were helping, or maybe it was that Fai had still been holding him – _kissing_ him – when the furnace swept through. Either way, the flames felt more like a soothing caress than a fiery consumption, tickling bursts of warmth and light and fathomless power that surged through every scattered inch of Kurogane’s being and left him dizzy in its reeling wake. The intensity of it all was still amazing, beyond the limits of what any being could possibly bear, and Kurogane stared into the fiery void as it opened into endless depths of roaring blue with a sense that he had left all limitations behind him. He was probably going to go blind, staring like that, but he couldn’t exactly help it: he didn’t have eyelids right now. Or hands to cover his face. Or a face, or _eyeballs_ —

Chii’s laughter burst the panic before it could bubble, echoing all around in shrill delight, and the wild thought that _of course she was laughing, she was made for this_ struck Kurogane with an epiphany like a brick to the face. Wherever she was in the rush, she was clearly enjoying herself, tumbling through the Veil like an acrobat with no fear and only joy in flight. Kurogane, on the other hand, was far too close to the edge of mortality to find flying through dimensions as a disembodied consciousness as all things burned anything like fun, but at least he’d gone into the fire knowing what to expect this time.

The fall was not so violent, either: nothing like the chasm that had dragged him down with claws around his ankle and left him breathless as he plummeted into the unknown. This felt like diving headfirst, the adrenaline a pounding drive as his being screamed towards oblivion, flame streaming from his soul as he burned as one with the inferno. And he wasn’t alone – he could feel Fai’s aura enfolding him completely, wrapping warm and soft in a cushion of power that held Kurogane together when every scrap of his tattered soul threatened to vibrate apart. It felt really fucking good, actually, good enough that Kurogane could sense pieces of himself melting into the lines between them, edges blurring in a shivering swell as Fai’s power laced through his own will like fingers entangling: a hold that _would not break_ , even as reality collapsed into cataclysm beneath the infinite burning blue.

It would be so simple to let himself be consumed, to sink into the demon until they were one existence and everything Kurogane knew was drowned by that impossible power – except two kisses (and one had been more like a dental examination at that) hardly counted as a first date, and also Kurogane wasn’t just going to hop into bed or eternal coexistence with a creature he’d just met. If Fai wanted him – and oh, _Fai wanted him_ , so very much; so much that Kurogane was burning with more than fire, the desire and the _need_ and the delighted shock that the demon had found him when his world was breaking and all was lost thundering through him with every pulse of their being entwined – then he’d have to actually put some _effort_ into it first.

Fai’s laughter rippled through him like sunlight, dripping honey-gold and almost too sweet, and Kurogane felt it shake him right down to the atomic level, that new-found affection and open wonder that two Realms could collide to such promise. Which Kurogane supposed was pretty fucking good for a Thursday, all things considered. Was it still blushing if you didn’t currently have a face? At any rate, there was a delicious heat inside him, unfolding like flower petals opening, and the richness of it as it bloomed wasn’t something Kurogane could hold back any longer, bursting out in a breathless shout that left him grinning, surfing on the wave of fire that thrilled him to the core—

—and then his back slammed into stone with all the force of a truck into a wall, bursting with pain that smashed through him in a bruising blow, and Kurogane strangled a scream through his teeth as gravity collapsed on him and he was crushed back into his body once more.

“Fuck!” It was meant to be a shout, but came out as more of a pained whimper, the weight on his chest squashing all breath from brand-new lungs, and Kurogane wheezed like a broken accordion as he struggled his watering eyes open. All he could see was a blur of hair, blonde and tangled, and the great arching sweep of two horns dangerously pointed, and when Fai _finally sat up_ instead of pinning Kurogane to the cold hard ground, cool air rushed back into his lungs with elastic urgency as the demon straddled his waist with legs akimbo.

“I _told_ you it would work!” someone crowed, except it wasn’t just someone – Kurogane would know that cheerful voice through earplugs at a heavy metal concert. “Hah! It worked so well you summoned three for the price of one!”

“Hokuto?” Kurogane grunted, still trying to blink through streaming tears. “The hell is going on?”

The room was coming into focus now, plain white plaster walls just like the office – which meant this _was_ the office then, and if the hard brass band digging into Kurogane’s spine was any indication, they’d landed in the summoning room; right smack in the middle of the pentagram at that, judging by the frosty feel of the office wards draping over them. Which made no fucking sense, the longer he thought about it. The aura of Sumeragi’s magic had _always_ felt warm before, familiar and welcoming and protective where it enfolded him like a blanket around his shoulders; now Kurogane felt like he was standing in an industrial refrigerator, chill wafting across his skin with all the caution of a stranger.

“I could ask you the same,” said Sumeragi himself, and he sounded dead on his feet. Ignoring the weight of the demon in his lap, Kurogane wedged himself upright on one elbow and stared at his boss over the elegant curve of Fai’s bare shoulder. Silky cloth pulled across Kurogane’s chest in distracting ways as he steadied himself, and the blue burn of Fai’s own gaze seared across his skin as the heat leapt into his face. Sumeragi watched him with green eyes as wide and incredulous as those of his twin as the pair of them stood with candles and ritual accoutrements at the foot of the pentagram’s brass ring, clearly in the middle of a casting of their own. “And before you say this isn’t what it looks like, Kurogane, I’d like to tell you that it looks like you have an entity of immense and terrifying power sitting in your lap, and another entity of considerably less but still incredible strength hovering above you both while holding what appears to be a piece of a broken fresco in demonic script.”

Kurogane rolled his gaze upwards to see Chii grinning down at him, her sharp teeth on shiny display as she giggled. A scatter of dusty stone crumbled from her boulderous bundle, falling like dirt to tickle Kurogane’s face and make him blink the powder from his eyes. She waved, her tail wiggling all about in clear excitement, and without thinking about it Kurogane waved back. “Uh,” he said, and then had to cough when crumbs dusted his tongue. “Bleh. _Ffftt_. Yeah, it’s, uh, pretty much exactly what it looks like.”

“Her name is Chii,” said Fai smoothly, looking entirely unconcerned as he tossed his head back, settling more comfortably into the cradle of Kurogane’s lap with a suggestive little wriggle. His horns gleamed beneath candlelight, rippling with a warm glow as his soft hair floated back into its proper place, somehow contriving to achieve artful deshabille where anyone else would be struggling with unattractive bedhead. “She would be my daughter, and the being you sent your charge to exorcise, am I correct?” Fai’s tail swept a lazy arc through the cool air, and one hand curled into the folds of cloth still clinging to Kurogane’s chest with obvious possessiveness as he spoke, the points of those very sharp nails prickling Kurogane’s skin through the shift of gauzy silk.

“Yes,” said Sumeragi slowly, and lifted one hand to absently swat at his sister as Hokuto gave a squeak of delight beside him. “That would be correct. Kurogane was sent to exorcise what we assumed to be a low-class spirit causing damage on public property. I see that is not what occurred.” The coolness of Sumeragi’s words matched the lines of the disdain that aged his face, turning his boyish look into something elegant and aloof, and the tired shadows beneath his famously green eyes were stark and solemn.

“Well,” said Fai, just as slowly, and the glint in blue eyes was wholly wicked. “Shall I tell you in all the ways your assumptions were wrong, or do you think you have the gist of it?”

Unwilling to lie on the ground and be postured over – because that’s what was happening, Sumeragi’s voice taking on the frosty tone he got when talking to telemarketers, and Fai rearing up to retort with serpentine grace, the lashing movement of his tail so threatening Kurogane could almost hear the rattlesnake shake – Kurogane sat up forcefully, fast enough that Fai nearly toppled from his lap with a startled squeak.

“ _Enough_ , both of you,” Kurogane growled, and snatched Fai by the wrist when he looked like he would protest. “I’ve been dragged through the Veil twice in one damn night, burned down to a single point of consciousness and reconstructed on an atomic level, got kissed by a demon – also twice – and nearly decapitated by his kid, used as a focus point for a spell to escape a collapsing world, and just about drowned in a pink pool of magical goop.” Kurogane paused. “Not necessarily in that order.” He was too tired to even attempt anything like frustration, managing only exasperation at the situation he found himself in. “After all that, I’m not gonna just sit here and watch you squabble over who has what claim on me. _Be nice_.”

Sumeragi blinked and said “ _You_ are asking _me_ to be nice?” at the same time Hokuto piped up with “You snogged a demon? _Score!_ ” and abruptly Kurogane wanted to go right back to the pink pool of magical goop and see if he could drown himself properly this time. He could literally feel the headache coming on.

“I think,” said Fai, sounding a lot less Imperial Demon King and a lot more contrite, “we should put the interrogation aside for now. Kurogane has been through an awful lot, for a mortal – surely the questions can wait for one night, yes?”

Sumeragi sighed, lifting his hand to his forehead and rubbing at the crease between his eyes as though it physically pained him to look at them. The last time Kurogane had seen him do that was when Kobato’s familiar had eaten a bird spirit and spent the rest of the day hiccupping up glowing feathers that had singed the carpet. “Alright. Clearly we’re not going to get this mess sorted out tonight, and I’m tired just looking at you. Kurogane, I am very glad you have returned safely from whichever Realm you were dragged into, and even _more_ glad I didn’t have to try and summon you back piece by piece.” _That_ explained what Hokuto was doing here then – if Sumeragi had been desperate enough to cast a summoning circle, then he would have wanted his twin for the magical power-boost. “Why don’t you take Chii and her father—”

“Call me Fai,” said Fai pleasantly.

“—yes, _Fai_ , and go home? It’s five minutes to midnight, and we could all use some sleep. Everything else can wait for Friday morning.”

“Not me – I’m going clubbing!” Hokuto’s little twirl of emphasis made the skirt of her dress flare out, and she struck a pose straight from the cover of a fashion magazine. “Everyone knows the best clubs are the ones that open on a Thursday night!”

Sumeragi, bravely ignoring his twin’s enthusiasm, pointed a finger sharply at the three of them – two demons and Kurogane – sprawled and/or floating in his pentagram. “I’m going home. And I _don’t_ want to see any of you in the office before ten a.m. tomorrow, got that? I’m going to need _at least_ eight hours of sleep if I’m going to deal with the mess you’ve gotten yourself into.”

Kurogane stared as Sumeragi left, Hokuto waggling her eyebrows as she skipped out after him, and the reality of his situation hit Kurogane with all the delicacy and care of a two-by-four cracking him in the back of the head. He hadn’t really considered that the consequences of helping two demons escape their collapsing Realm would mean that he, personally, would be responsible for said demons when he got home. Actually, he hadn’t thought about it at all: the fact that Fai and Chii needed a home, and ID, and someone to show them how to adapt to modern life with mobile phones and electricity and processed food. _Shit_. It was gonna end up being Kurogane himself dealing with all that crap, he just knew it. It wasn’t like he could just turf them out into the world without making sure they knew how to take care of themselves – he wasn’t that kind of man, and also the guilt would eat him alive.

_“Chii wants to see mortal home!”_

_“Calm down, sweetling. Kurogane needs a moment to process.”_

More like Kurogane needs to crawl into a deep, dark pit and never come out.

“Get off,” he said eventually, tugging on Fai’s wrist to prove his point. “I can’t get up if you’re in my lap.” Considering he was a supernatural entity of immense eldritch power, Fai was doing a pretty good job at pouting childishly as he rolled out of Kurogane’s lap and surged smoothly to his feet. “I suppose I’m taking you home with me,” Kurogane grunted, hauling himself painfully to his feet. There had to be an easier way to move through dimensions than being dropped from a great height and onto a concrete floor, fuck. “You better not make trouble for me with my neighbours.”

“I’ll be on my best behaviour,” Fai assured him, a statement which Kurogane had no confidence in whatsoever, and the grin on Fai’s face suggested he damn well knew it.

“Chii comes too!” came the excited chirp, complete with midair loop-de-loop and another shower of grit from the huge hunk of stone she was still hugging like a teddy bear.

Kurogane sighed, but couldn’t entirely stop the grin twitching at the corner of his mouth – not with how Fai was looking at him, a spark in blue eyes that promised exactly the kind of trouble Kurogane knew he didn’t need, but still wouldn’t trade for anything in this Realm or any other. “Yeah,” he said, and had to laugh when she swooped high enough to buzz the ceiling, “Chii comes too.”

**Author's Note:**

> If this weren't a contest fic, and I had the time, I can so _easily_ see this turning into a situational comedy ala _Brooklyn 99_ about Kurogane the long-suffering exorcist with no actual magical ability, and his boyfriend/partner in crime Fai the demon, who provides the magical brawn and wisecracking commentary, much to Kurogane's despair. They'd co-parent Chii, who would befriend Kobato, and also Hokuto would be there. Subaru would have a constant headache, and also love every minute of it. It'd be great.
> 
> If you're reading this in August 2017 and would like to vote for my fic in the 2017 KuroFai Olympics, please head on over to the KuroFai Community on dreamwidth; the official voting post is [here.](http://kurofai.dreamwidth.org/102151.html)


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